Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA

Lagos (Mayoral Salary)

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the resolution of the all-African elected town council of Lagos, that the mayor should be paid a salary of £2,500 a year and that £2,000 for his car and £500 for his regalia should be voted, has been implemented by the Government of the Colony.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. James Griffiths): The matter of the mayor's salary has been referred back to the Lagos Town Council by the Governor in Council, and details have been given of mayoral remuneration in towns of similar size in the United Kingdom. The Governor in Council did not take objection to the provision for a car.

Mr. Reid: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Lagos Council or any Standing Committee of it passed the resolution in question?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir, but it is subject to the approval of the Governor in Council, who has referred the matter back.

Museums

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many museums there are in Nigeria; in how many the historical treasures of Nigeria are on view; and when it is proposed to commence the building of a museum in Nigeria, especially for displaying the Benin treasures and antiquities.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I have asked the Governor for information and will write to my hon. Friend when I have his reply.

Mr. Cooper: Does my right hon. Friend realise that some of these treasures are stored in most unsuitable conditions and that some of them have been obtained by other nations and will be returned, provided that suitable accommodation for their preservation and display is provided? Will he do something to expedite this matter?

Mr. Griffiths: I will give consideration to it when I have received a reply from the Governor.

Schools

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many schools there are in the northern territories of Nigeria; and in how many science and nature study are now being taught.

Mr. J. Griffiths: There are over 1,400 schools in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria. Nature study is part of the recommended syllabus for primary schools, and science is normally taught in secondary schools. I have asked the Governor for more detailed information, and will write to my hon. Friend when I have his reply.

Mr. Cooper: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the teaching of science in these schools is of extreme importance if the standards of agriculture are to be improved and if the use of fertilisers is to be extended? Will he take into account the recommendations of this matter put before the education authorities in Nigeria over a considerable period by Mr. Duckworth, a one-time science inspector?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate that. When I have received further detailed information, perhaps my hon. Friend would put down another Question.

Mr. Sorensen: How many girls are receiving education in the Northern Territory schools?

Mr. Griffiths: I could not say without notice.

Groundnut Exports

Sir Ralph Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what price is being paid by the French West African authorities for a ton of Nigerian groundnuts; and how this price compares with that paid by the Nigerian Marketing Board for groundnuts of the same quality.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am informed that the groundnut trade in French West Africa is in commercial hands, but I have no information about the open market prices paid there.

Sir R. Glyn: Is it not a fact that, by order of the marketing board, the growers of this crop are not allowed to export, but that, in spite of this, 10,000 tons have been exported?

Mr. Griffiths: I should like to look at that point before answering.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, as long as the price fixed by the marketing board is well below the real price, he will find large movements of material, which are urgently required here, going into hands quite different from those which we desire?

Coal Exports

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much coal has been shipped from Nigeria to this country since it was decided to import Nigerian coal; how much awaits shipment at the colliery and Port Harcourt, respectively; and to what extent the ships sent to load it have been kept waiting.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No shipments have yet arrived in the United Kingdom, but two ships were due in Part Harcourt on 23rd and 24th February to load 4,600 tons, and another is due there in March to load 2,500 tons. There are 10,000 tons at the colliery and 31,600 tons at Port Harcourt. No ships have been kept waiting at Port Harcourt.

Mr. Keeling: As coal has accumulated at both the colliery and the port, is it not a pity that, as we were told last week by the Minister of Fuel and Power, only 10,000 tons of Nigerian coal has been bought by the National Coal Board?

Mr. Griffiths: That is a question which ought to be put to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power.

Mr. Keeling: It's your coal.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this coal can be shipped direct to British ports, or whether it has to be trans-shipped at great expense, like the American coal?

Mr. Griffiths: That, again, is a question which ought to be put to the Minister of Fuel and Power.

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: Is the use of ships for this purpose creating a shortage of ships on the neighbouring Gold Coast?

Mr. Griffiths: I cannot say, Sir.

Development Corporation

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) how many immigrant workers are employed by the Cameroons Corporation; whether they have their families with them; and whether they participate on terms of equality with the other inhabitants;
(2) what proportion of the employees of the Cameroons Development Corporation are provided with housing; and what assistance is given to employees not living in Corporation property.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I have referred these requests for information to the Governor of Nigeria and will write to my hon. Friend when I have his reply.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on how wages paid by the Cameroons Development Corporation compare with wages paid for similar work in other parts of the Cameroons and Nigeria.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I have asked the Governor for this information and I will write to my hon. Friend when it is received.

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the allocation of any profits made by the Cameroons Development Corporation to date.

Mr. J. Griffiths: In 1948 the net profits remaining for distribution on projects of general benefit to the people of the Cameroons were £54,352. I have asked the Governor for the figures for 1949 and 1950 and for a statement of the schemes on which the moneys available from 1948 onwards have been, or are being, expended. I will write to my hon. Friend when I have the Governor's reply.

Cocoa Trees (Disease)

Mr. G. P. Stevens: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how far cocoa farmers in Nigeria are still objecting to the cutting out of trees infected


with swollen shoot; and whether working gangs are still being withdrawn in consequence of this opposition.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Opposition to the work of both survey teams and cutting-out gangs is now of negligible proportions. Cutting-out is being carried on in a systematic manner.

Mr. Keeling: Can the Secretary of State give a little more information as to how the opposition was overcome, because as recently as five months ago we were told by the Department of Agriculture that hardly a week goes by without some incident and the withdrawal of the labour gangs?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, we are carrying on a continuous educational campaign to explain why we have perforce to adopt this policy.

Mr. Sorensen: Do those who have cooperated in giving explanations include a number of Africans?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir.

DECEPTION ISLAND

Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies who is now in occupation of Deception Island.

Mr. J. Griffiths: There are both British and Argentine parties established on Deception Island. The British post is under the charge of a magistrate and maintains a meteorological station and a post office.

Mr. Maclean: What steps are being taken to evict these undesirable aliens from British territory?

Mr. Griffiths: No steps have been taken, but His Majesty's Government have indicated that they are quite prepared to let this matter be decided by the International Court.

Commander Noble: How many of those who are there are armed?

Mr. Griffiths: I could not say without notice.

COLONIAL STUDENTS, UNITED KINGDOM

Mr. Peter Smithers: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is his policy to encourage and to assist

colonial students who are married to bring their wives with them when studying in Britain; and whether his policy in this respect is the same for West Indian as for African students.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The answer to both parts of the Question is "Yes, Sir." I am in consultation with colonial Governments about certain practical considerations affecting the implementation of this policy.

Mr. Smithers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the hardship which arises as a result of students who have come to this country finding, on their return to the Colonies, that their outlook has altered so much that it is rather difficult to live with their former wives? Will he give sympathetic consideration to this matter?

Mr. Griffiths: I am aware of that consideration, and I am sympathetic to the project put forward.

Mr. Sorensen: Exactly what does my right hon. Friend propose to do in the case of those unfortunate students who do not like their wives when they return?

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken to ensure that the wardens in charge of the colonial students hostels possess the qualities needed to enable them to carry out their tasks satisfactorily.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The British Council are responsible, under my general direction, for the administration of the hostels and the appointment of the wardens. In the selection of wardens consideration is given to experience in dealing with colonial students and in handling a student or similar community, to administrative ability, and to the qualities of sympathy, firmness and tact. Confirmation of the appointments is subject to the satisfactory completion of a probationary period.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware of the criticisms which come from high quarters in Malaya of the appointment of senior Government officials to take charge of these places, and that because of this the students do not feel a sense of sympathy and confidence?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. I have visited some of these hostels and no such criticism has been conveyed to me.

Mr. Awbery: If I draw the attention of the Minister to it, will he take action?

Mr. Griffiths: If my hon. Friend will give me any details or particulars of what he has in mind, I will look at the matter, but, as I say, I have had no complaints.

Mr. Wyatt: Would my right hon. Friend try, as often as possible, to ensure that the wardens are of the same race as the students?

Mr. Griffiths: In one of the hostels I have been encouraging young officers trained here for the Colonial Service to share the hospitality of the hostels with those from colonial territories so that they can begin to co-operate before they leave for their service.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Railway

Mr. J. N. Browne: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the Government's plans for the future of the Cyprus railroad.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The Cyprus Government have been advised that the railway could not be operated safely after the end of this year without extensive and costly renewals. Since alternative road transport could be provided more cheaply, the Governor has invited public comment on the proposal that the railway should be closed. Many comments have been received and are now being examined.

Mr. Browne: Is the Minister aware that this railway is of great importance to the mining industry, as well as being of great strategic importance? Is he further aware that in the spring both passengers and crew stop between stations and gather spring flowers? Are not these three very good reasons for continuing the railway?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. I understand that the railway loses about £4,000 per annum and that the cost of renewal is £400,000 so there is no chance of making it an economic proposition.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the Minister aware how satisfactory it is to have at least one Minister who will answer Questions about railways?

Harbour Facilities

Mr. Browne: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the growing economic importance of Cyprus, it is proposed to give any assistance to the island in improving the harbour facilities.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Existing facilities for merchant ships are considered adequate except at Limassol. Proposals for improvements at Limassol recommended by consulting engineers are now under examination. The cost would be met from Cyprus funds.

Mr. Browne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the people of Cyprus will be very glad to have this information about Limassol? Is he aware that at Famagusta there is no crane capable of working a ship, that there are only two mechanical cranes capable of lifting three tons from ground level on to a lorry and that there is no lighting at the harbour entrance, which means that no ship can leave or enter after dark? Will he look into this matter?

Mr. Griffiths: I will look into the matter, but my information is that the facilities are adequate. We are trying to make them adequate in Limassol.

Captain Ryder: Would it not greatly improve the prosperity of Cyprus if these harbour facilities were improved?

Mr. Griffiths: They are to be improved at Limassol, and I understand that they are already adequate in other ports.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Has consideration been given to bringing these needs of Cyprus under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act?

Mr. Griffiths: Cyprus has funds of its own which are adequate, we think, to meet the cost of these improvements.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is this not a terrible legacy which we have inherited from the Tories?

Mr. Browne: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, in view of the growing strategic importance of the island of Cyprus, what steps he is taking to ensure that satisfactory harbour facilities are maintained.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Walter Edwards): Present harbour facilities in Cyprus are sufficient to provide for strategic requirements.

Mr. Browne: Does the Minister not think that for an island of the strategic importance of this Colony to have a harbour which only holds ships drawing no more than 22 ft. 6 in. and no more than 425 ft. in length is not sufficient and that this matter should be looked at again at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Edwards: This matter has been looked at by our advisers and my answer gives the information we obtained.

TANGANYIKA (LAND LEASES)

Mr. Dodds-Parker: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what land at Kongwa, developed by the Overseas Food Corporation, is leased from the Tanganyika Government; what restrictions operate against its sub-lease by the Corporation to another party; and what applications have been received by the Tanganyika Government to sub-lease it in the event of the Corporation reducing its activities.

Mr. J. Griffiths: All land developed by the Corporation at Kongwa is leased from the Tanganyika Government, and may not be sub-let without the consent of that Government. No application has been received to sub-lease land at Kongwa in the event of the Corporation reducing its activities.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Has the Tanganyika Government or any private interest been given a chance to make application to take over this area?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not know. The right of sub-letting is subject to the consent of the Tanganyika Government.

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much land has been leased in the Tahora district of the Western Province of Tanganyika for agricultural purposes within the last 12 months; and what crops are likely to be planted on the land so leased.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No land has been so leased in the Tabora district within the last 12 months.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICAN COLONIES

Food Storage Equipment

Mr. Dodds-Parker: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange to send out to East Africa demonstration units of road and railway vehicles for the cold storage carriage of foodstuffs, using the latest equipment, including eutectic tanks.

Mr. J. Griffiths: This would be a matter for the transport authority in East Africa. Their view is, I understand, that an experiment on the lines suggested, at the expense of public funds, is not considered justifiable at the present time.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Is it not a fact that refrigerating activities in Kenya are already nationalised, and would it not be as well to try to get them to instal up-to-date equipment?

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Should not the penultimate word of this Question be "eupeptic"? If that is the case, would the right hon. Gentleman have one put into the Library so that hon. Members who are suffering from indigestion can study it?

Mr. Griffiths: I understand that the right word is "eutectic." These tanks are containers which are filled with dioxide ice—"dry ice"—and when placed within a closed vehicle extract heat from the atmosphere within and so lower the temperature.

Cotton

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the estimated yield of cotton grown in Uganda and Nigeria, respectively, this season; and what were the figures for the 1948–49 and 1949–50 seasons for each territory.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Cotton yields in Uganda for the 1948–49 and 1949–50 seasons were 392,000 and 342,000 bales respectively; the yield for the 1950–51 season, when weather conditions were very unfavourable, is estimated at 300,000 bales. The Nigerian exportable surplus for the 1948–49 season was 51,000 bales; the estimated exportable surpluses for the 1949–50 and the 1950–51 seasons are 60,000 and 71.000 bales respectively.

Commodity Marketing Boards

Sir Richard Acland: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether he will expedite publication of the reports and balance sheets for the various commodity marketing boards operating in West Africa and Uganda for the year 1949–50; and whether, in advance of such publication, he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table giving approximate figures for the net credit balance earned by each on the year's working;
(2) whether he can publish approximate figures showing in 1950–51 an estimate of the credit balances likely to be earned by each of the produce marketing boards in West Africa and Uganda on the assumption that the present buying and selling prices are maintained and that the total crops for sale in 1950–51 are the same as those in 1949–50.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It rests with the boards themselves to publish their reports and balance sheets. I am asking the Governors concerned to inquire from the boards whether publication can be expedited. I should be reluctant to ask the boards to give any figures in advance, as they might later prove to be misleading.

Sir R. Acland: As it is certain that important policy decisions may depend upon having, in time, the best estimates that are possible about the way in which the finances of these boards are being used, may I ask my right hon. Friend once again to do his very utmost to make broad and general estimates of financial progress available to the House before Easter?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate the point, but as the responsibility for publishing the accounts rests with the boards I can only do what I am proposing to do, and that is to ask them to expedite publication.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALAYA

Development Scheme

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made in opening up jungle areas in Malaya under the Rural and Industrial Development Authority under the chairmanship of Dato Onn.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I have no details of specific plans and schemes. The Authority has, of course, been in existence only

since September, 1950, and much preliminary planning will have been necessary. I have asked to be regularly informed of progress in order that due publicity may be given to this imaginative and far-reaching scheme.

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that a group of Malays, Chinese and Indians applied to the Rural and Industrial Development Authority in the Karang area of Kuala Selangor, Malaya, for a loan to purchase a rice mill to be run on cooperative lines; what assistance was given; and how far the example of the three races getting together on a cooperative basis is being encouraged.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No such application has been made to the Rural and Industrial Development Authority, but before the establishment of the Authority Government assistance was given to the Tanjong Karang Mill project. Co-operation between races is encouraged by the Authority and a new pineapple grading scheme in Johore, for example, will cater for Malay and Chinese small growers.

Mr. Awbery: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the greatest problems in Malaya is to get the Chinese, the Malays and the Indians to work together? When applications of this character are made, will he deal with them expeditiously?

Mr. Griffiths: I have given my very fullest support to all projects of this kind by and through which the races can cooperate and build up harmony between each other.

Civil Service

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for what reason only five of the last 35 Malay candidates interviewed for the Malayan Civil Service were selected, although they all had either long experience as administrative officers or were barristers or graduates of English universities.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am consulting the High Commissioner for the Federation of Malaya and will write my hon. Friend in due course.

Mr. Wyatt: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it is of the utmost importance that we should make the Malayan people believe that we want


them to have self-government? Will he therefore bring as many Malays into the Civil Service as possible?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate that.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many British graduates have failed to get into the Malayan Civil Service? Will he, above all things, maintain the quality of that Civil Service?

Chinese Association Dinner (Guests)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if it is with his knowledge and approval that senior European police officers dined with the Johore Bahru branch of the Malayan Chinese Association at which surrendered bandits were entertained to a ten course dinner.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No, Sir. Instructions have since been issued that such invitations should not be accepted by Government officials.

Mr. Gammans: Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that the European and Asian communities many of whose members have been murdered by the bandits, disapprove entirely of this sort of entertainment?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. I thought I had made that clear in my answer.

Non-Malay Citizens

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Chinese, Indians and Sinhalese have registered as federal citizens in Malaya; and what is the ratio of those who have registered to the total population of Malaya.

Mr. J. Griffiths: A conservative estimate of the numbers of non-Malays who are automatically federal citizens under the present citizenship law is 350,000 Chinese, 225,000 Indians and 45,000 others, i.e. 1 in 8 of the total population. Approximately 154,320 Chinese and 6,690 Indians and others have been granted certificates of citizenship on application, i.e. 1 in 33 of the population.

Mr. Wyatt: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that that is an extraordinarily small proportion of the population to have applied for registration of

federal citizenship; and would he do everything in his power to impress upon those who are entitled to apply the advantages of full citizenship, and make it as easy and attractive as possible?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir.

Cocoa Production

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many acres of cocoa are under cultivation in Malaya; and what steps are being taken to increase this production.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As regards the first part of the question, I am consulting the High Commissioner and will write to the hon. Member when the information is received. As to the second part of the Question, an expert investigation was made in 1947–48. Since then, a cocoa officer has been appointed and several experimental plantings undertaken. Supplies of first-class planting material are being obtained to build up the best planting stock procurable.

Air Commodore Harvey: In view of the world shortage of cocoa, and the great possibility that this presents to Malaya, will the Minister take early action to ensure that every opportunity is taken to make financial and other facilities available?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. If this succeeds, it will be a valuable addition to the economy of Malaya. It will diversify it, and will also help to meet a world need.

Mr. N. Macpherson: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any increase as yet, and whether the experiments are likely to succeed or not?

Mr. Griffiths: I would not like to make too definite a statement at the moment. So far, I think that it is reasonably encouraging.

UGANDA (MR. IGNATIUS MUSAZI)

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why Mr. Ignatius Musazi was detained on arrival in Uganda from Britain on 22nd January; and what are the Uganda Government's intentions in respect of him.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I informed the House on 31st January of the circumstances that led to Mr. Musazi's detention. I am now glad to be able to say that the Governor has decided, with my concurrence, not to deport Mr. Musazi, but to keep him under light restraint at Moyo, a township in the Northern Province of Uganda, where he will be able to be accompanied by his family and, subject to reasonable conditions, to see his friends and associates. The Governor and I hope that it will prove possible to help Mr. Musazi to realise that Government policy and intentions are designed soly for the welfare of the people of Uganda. We hope that he will thereby become convinced of the desirability of working with, rather than against, the Government in the interests of the country and that it will then be possible to release him from all forms of restraint.

Mr. Brockway: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman despite his use of the word "detention," whether it is not a fact that Mr. Musazi has been deported to a northern province, and to a village on the Sudan frontier, by an order—a copy of which I have in my hand—which refers to the fact that he has been deported? Can he say whether the charges against Mr. Musazi are not those of taking part in the disturbances of 1949 when, in fact, he was in this country, and whether the Government do not now recognise that his organisation—

Hon. Members: Speech.

Mr. Kirkwood: Well it is a good speech.

Mr. Brockway: —is constructively aiming at building a co-operative organisation? In view of those facts will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not want, at this stage, to go over the past history of this case, about which I have already answered many Questions in the House. The organisation to which my hon. Friend has referred is now showing signs of co-operating with the Government, and it is our very anxious desire that that co-operation shall develop. It is my hope, for the reasons that I have given in my answer, that in the not too distant future it will be possible to remove all restraint upon Mr. Musazi, and in view of that I would rather not re-hash this matter.

Mr. Awbery: Has my right hon. Friend received any evidence from non-official European sources in Uganda supporting the action of the Government? Is it not a fact that the Bishop of Uganda and other leading Europeans have expressed confidence in Mr. Musazi?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not wish to go into the history of this matter.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Co-operative Party, which represents a considerable section of opinion in this country, has made inquiries into this business and finds that Mr. Musazi is completely vindicated?

Mr. Griffiths: This matter arose quite a considerable time ago. There was an inquiry and the findings of the inquiry were accepted by my predecessor. That was announced in this House. I say again, to hon. Members on both sides, that I think there is a possibility of this matter ending satisfactorily. That being so, I do not want to pursue it any farther.

Mr. Brockway: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's only partially satisfactory answer, I wish to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment, and, further, that I will take advantage of the Ten Minutes Rule procedure to introduce a Bill to withdraw these Hitlerian and Stalinian powers of deportation from Colonial Governors.

Mr. Eden: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that extraordinary description of his powers?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir, I do not. I may say that I am myself examining, not only in Uganda but in all Colonial Territories, the policy of deportation.

NYASALAND (CO-OPERATIVE TRADING)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent it is the policy of His Majesty's Government to encourage co-operative trading in Nyasaland.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It is the policy of His Majesty's Government to encourage the development of all forms of co-operative enterprise in Nyasaland, as in other Colonial Territories. At the end of 1949 there were 31 consumers' societies in Nyasaland, and since then seven further


societies have been established in the Northern Province. A union of the Northern Province societies to import certain consumer goods is being formed. My adviser on co-operation recently spent three weeks in Nyasaland.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Kota-Kota Co-operative Store at Mzuzu has been closed down by the Colonial Development Corporation after the Corporation had invited it to trade? Can he say if the Nyasaland Government has made any protest about the matter to the Colonial Development Corporation?

Mr. Griffiths: I have no information about it. If my hon. Friend will put the details to me in the form of a Question I will do my best to give him an answer.

Mr. Rankin: I did try to put the details down, but they were rejected by the Table.

Mr. Griffiths: If my hon. Friend will write to me about it, I will then write to him.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Arising out of the last supplementary question, will the right hon. Gentleman use this illustration to re-open once more the matter of the admissibility of Questions about the Colonial Development Corporation and the Overseas Food Corporation?

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Hurricane Damage, Antigua

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many houses were destroyed or damaged by the recent hurricane in Antigua; how many have been rebuilt or made habitable; and whether he is aware of local dissatisfaction on this matter.

Mr. J. Griffiths: One thousand three hundred and seventy-eight houses, including 384 of wattle and daub, were destroyed, and 2,506 were damaged. About 500 wattle and daub houses have been repaired or rebuilt as temporary accommodation and, in addition, grants have been made amounting to about 115 per cent. of the estimated cost of materials needed to repair all damaged houses. As regards the last part of the Question, I am in communication with

the Governor and I hope that a further statement about additional assistance may be issued shortly.

Mr. Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend try to expedite action in this matter because there is some local dissatisfaction, particularly as British representatives in the United Nations advised the other member States that the situation was well in hand?

Mr. Griffiths: We did act quickly in this matter and we did provide assistance. What I am considering now is whether further assistance is necessary.

Mr. Sorensen: Meanwhile, has any compensation been given to those who suffered from the hurricane.

Mr. Griffiths: I should like notice of that Question.

Riots, Grenada

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the general strike in Grenada; and on the circumstances which led to the landing of marines.

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement regarding the situation in Grenada; how many casualties have occurred; and what steps are being taken to restore order.

Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement regarding the situation on the island of Grenada.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I would refer to the statement I made on 26th February and deal more fully with certain points raised.
The widespread strikes began on 19th February. Parties from H.M.S. "Devonshire," including marines, were landed on the 22nd in view of the internal situation. They have taken over guard duties at vital points thus freeing the police to concentrate on the essential task of restoring order. Four more cases of personal injury have occurred. There have, in addition, been numerous cases of widespread intimidation including the intimidation of witnesses.
Two persons have been detained under regulations made under an Emergency Order-in-Council to counter the threat to public safety and order. They will not


be brought before the courts but will be released when the emergency has passed. Nine arrests have been made for unlawful assembly: and those convicted have been fined and bound over. The stoppage originated at Belmont, La Sagesse and Hope estates. No agricultural station has been burned.
I am making arrangements for my Labour Adviser to go to Grenada within the next few days, but I wish to emphasise again that nothing can be done to deal with the underlying causes of these disorders until the disturbances have ceased and there has been a general resumption of work. When that has taken place negotiations can be started. Those who have allowed themselves to be misled into these acts of violence are doing great harm to the island and to their own interests.

Mr. Hynd: Were the disturbances started after the leaders of the strike had been arrested? Would my right hon. Friend consider releasing those leaders as a possible way of getting the disturbances stopped?

Mr. Griffiths: This is a matter which I must leave to the discretion of the Governor on the spot. When I answered a question the other day I made an appeal —in which I am sure we all join—that there should be an end of the disturbances and a resumption of work, so that we can then go fully into whatever are the causes of the dispute.

Mr. Eden: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the disturbances are, to the best of his information, purely local, or whether there are any wider symptoms? I am sure he will agree that there is much anxiety at these conditions and at the resulting riots, which do damage not only to the island but to the good name of the West Indies and to the happiness of their people?

Mr. Griffiths: As far as my information goes, they are purely local in origin. I do not think they have any connection with any events outside the island.

Mr. G. Cooper: Could my right hon. Friend say how long in advance of the disturbances actually breaking out he was advised of a situation probably arising which might cause such trouble?

Mr. Griffiths: For some time there has been a dispute between these two unions.

Actually, these strikes began without any application being put forward and without any kind of wage demand or any other claim at all. The strikes were just called. Therefore, there has been no tangible request to us to which we could give any consideration or negotiation.

Mr. Eden: I am sorry to press the right hon. Gentleman, but would he not agree that although there may be a dispute between two unions, and even good reasons for that dispute, it is really no excuse for outbreaks of disorder of this kind, which do thousands of pounds worth of damage as well as damaging the good name of the colonial administration?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. I think I emphasised that today and the other day. I have called upon all to cease the disturbances so that investigations can take place. I am sending my Labour Adviser out there to examine the situation.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: The right hon. Gentleman used the words "negotiations which will take place after the disturbances have come to an end." Did he mean political or industrial negotiations, and in either case, surely, these are matters for the local authorities? Is he expecting that his Labour Adviser will take part other than in an advisory capacity?

Mr. Griffiths: He will take part in an advisory capacity. When I said negotiations, I meant industrial negotiations.

Mr. Brockway: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether I heard him correctly in saying that there have been no deaths and that the number of injuries are limited to four?

Mr. Griffiths: What I said was that four more cases of personal injuries have been reported since I made my last statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — GAMBIA

Research Scheme

Sir R. Acland: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now able, or expects shortly to be able, to make any statement about provisions for carrying on the research work formerly undertaken by the Medical Research Council into the social consequences of mechanised farming, the diseases of native villages and the potentialities of fertilisers in the Gambia.

Mr. I. Griffiths: The original scheme for the Nutritional Field Working Party, which operated at Benieri in the Gambia under the auspices of the Medical Research Council, ended on 31st December, 1950. The Governor of the Gambia has agreed that, with some shift of emphasis from nutrition to agriculture, the scheme shall continue under his general control and I am awaiting his detailed proposals.

Mr. Harold Davies: Will my right hon. Friend say why the scheme has been allowed to lapse—that is what it really means—why there is not more cooperation within the Colonial Office in providing information about the Nutritional Field Working Party Report, and what is going on at present in Fajara as well as Benieri in regard to this scheme?

Mr. Griffiths: Perhaps my hon. Friend did not grasp the import of my answer. It was that the Governor of the Gambia has agreed that with some shift of emphasis, the scheme shall continue, and I am awaiting the detailed proposals.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is it not a fact that a very large proportion of the findings of the Council would, if they had been applied to the poultry scheme in the Gambia, have prevented a great deal of the trouble which has arisen there?

Sir R. Acland: Will my right hon. Friend, in particular make sure that the work on the potentiality of fertilisers for tropical soils is continued and widely supported?

Mr. Griffiths: I will consider that. As I have said, I am awaiting the detailed proposals from the Governor. If my hon. Friend will put down a Question in a few weeks' time I will give him an answer.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: Is not the result of this research very valuable, and was it not completely ignored when the chickens and eggs scheme was started?

Poultry Scheme

Mr. Hurd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the total amount of advances made to the Colonial Development Corporation for the purposes of the poultry farm in the Gambia.

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many eggs have been imported from Gambia under the scheme started two years ago; and what is the cost of that scheme to date.

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if, in view of the failure of the supplies of eggs and dressed poultry from the Gambia poultry scheme, he proposes to send out a commission of inquiry or to call for any special report from the Colonial Development Corporation.

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the disappointing output from the Gambia egg project, how far he intends to modify or abandon the scheme.

Mr. J. Griffiths: With permission, I will make a statement at the end of Questions in answer to these Questions.

GOLD COAST (VERNACULAR PUBLICATIONS)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the composition of the Vernacular Literature Board in the Gold Coast; what are its powers; and whether he has received any complaints that the activity of the Board adversely affects vernacular publication by voluntary and other bodies.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As the information is detailed I will, with permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have received no complaints against the activities of the Board.

Following is the statement:
The Board has 15 members, six of whom are appointed by the Governor-in-Council, four by the four Territorial Councils, and the remaining five by the Central Advisory Committee on Education (which is fully representative of the Missions), the University College of the Gold Coast, the Gold Coast Press Association, the People's Educational Association and the Legislative Assembly. There is also a Director of the Bureau of Vernacular Literature, who is a member fo the Board and is appointed by the Board.
The Board is an independent statutory body mainly financed by Government grants-in-aid. It has power to set up and manage printing and publishing establishments for producing vernacular literature, but it is laid down in the Ordinance which established it that it is to "have regard to the normal development of private agencies.

Oral Answers to Questions — SEYCHELLES

Penal Code

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the proposed changes in the penal code and criminal procedure code in the Seychelles; and why the Court of Appeal for the Seychelles is being transferred from Mauritius to East Africa.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The present penal code is a mixture of French, English and Indian penal law and the criminal code is unsatisfactory in many ways. The object of the drafts which have been published and are now being studied by the Seychelles Government in consultation with local lawyers, is to replace these codes by new ones based on the East African codes, which are themselves codifications of English law. The proposal that appeals in criminal matters should be transferred to the East African Court of Appeal is connected with the proposed revision of the Criminal Procedure Code. Legislation would be required in Seychelles to enable this transfer to be effected. No such legislation has as yet been passed.

Mr. Baldwin: Is it not a fact that when the Seychelles were taken from the French by the British they were then administered under French law which governs Mauritius as well, and was not an undertaking given at the time that they should remain under that law?

Mr. Griffiths: As I have said, I understand that the present legal code is a mixture from several sources. This is a proposal which has been put forward for consideration and has been discussed, but no final decision has yet been taken.

Postmaster and Treasurer (Salaries)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what increases of salaries have recently been made in the Seychelles to the postmaster and treasurer, respectively.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No increase in the salaries of these two posts has been made since the general revision of salaries which took place in 1947 after an investigation by an independent commission.

BROADCASTING AND TELEVISION (REPORT)

Mr. Janner: asked the Lord President of the Council whether it is proposed to announce the decision the Government has reached with regard to the recommendations of the Beveridge Committee on broadcasting and television; and whether legislation in this connection may be expected.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I would refer my hon. Friend to my answer to the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) on 24th January, and my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) on 14th February.

Sir W. Smithers: When the Lord President comes to a decision will he bear in mind that the B.B.C. is already riddled with Communism?

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of having a debate in this House before he reaches a final conclusion?

Mr. Morrison: All these things have been raised before. As to who is riddled with what I would like to hazard a guess about the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) one day.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

Service Voters

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Defence how many persons in the Fighting Forces are entered as Service voters in the new Electoral Register; and what proportion of the persons qualified to vote in each of the three Services are so registered.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Shinwell): It is estimated that about 311,000 men and women in the Forces will be entered as Service voters in the new Electoral Register. The proportion of those qualified in each Service who will be entered is estimated to be about 95 per cent. for the Navy, 67 per cent. for the Army and 75 per cent. for the Royal Air Force.

Mr. Keeling: Can the Minister offer any explanation why the Army has done so much worse than the other two Services? Secondly, as so many young


men of about 20 are in the Services, can he say whether those men who qualify for registration if they are 21 by 15th June, 1951, are included in his figure of qualified men?

Mr. Shinwell: The lower percentage for the Army is largely attributable to the wide dispersion of that particular Service.

Mr. Keeling: What about the Navy?

Mr. Shinwell: Strange as it may seem, there are greater difficulties in connection with the Army. As regards the second part of the hon. Gentleman's first supplementary question, the answer is in the affirmative.

Mr. R. A. Butler: On a point of order. May I ask, Sir, whether the Lord President of the Council has any statement to make to the House about a communication he has just received from my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers)?

Mr. H. Morrison: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that in the interest of public amenity I ought not to disclose it.

Courts-Martial

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Minister of Defence what administrative action is contemplated with regard to the composition of courts-martial in the Army and Royal Air Force in fulfilment of the report of the Lewis Committee.

Mr. Shinwell: None, Sir.

Mr. Blackburn: Does not the Minister think that it is quite wrong that soldiers may be tried and convicted of serious offences, such as murder, on a majority verdict of four officers against three, or three against two, whereas people in civilian life can only be convicted on the unanimous verdict of 12 jurymen?

Mr. Shinwell: That matter was discussed in the recent debate on the Courts-Martial (Appeals) Bill.

Mr. Blackburn: The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. I was ruled out of order by Mr. Speaker when I sought to raise this matter in the debate on that Bill. I would beg the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter and have the unanimity rule immediately introduced for courts-martial throughout the Services.

Ex-Miners

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Defence how many ex-miners, now in the Forces, have volunteered for the mines in the last month.

Mr. Murray: asked the Minister of Defence how many ex-miners have applied for permission to leave the Forces; and how many of these applications have been granted.

Mr. Shinwell: The administrative details of the scheme for allowing ex-miners in the Forces to return to the mines have only recently been completed and there has therefore been no opportunity yet for ex-miners officially to apply for release. The necessary instructions are being issued to Service commands at home and abroad this week.

Mr. Hamilton: In view of the importance of speed in getting these men back to the mines, can my right hon. Friend say whether commanding officers have been given instructions accordingly?

Mr. Shinwell: It takes some time to work out the administrative details of a scheme of this character.

Mr. Murray: Will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to expedite this matter, because we in the mining industry are satisfied that the only people who can really get the additional coal we require are our ex-miners?

Mr. Henderson Stewart: So that hon. Members may be assisted in answering questions from miner constituents on this matter, would the Minister explain to us the administrative details so that we can cope with such questions—the conditions, for example?

Mr. Shinwell: It is impossible to do so by way of Question and answer, but I will, if the hon. Member wishes, give him in writing what information I can.

Mr. H. Hynd: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the other two Services have reached the same deplorable decision as the Army in withholding this concession from ex-miners who are National Service men, and whether he will extend it to the ex-miners who are National Service men?

Mr. Shinwell: There has been no deplorable decision in relation to anyone in the Services.

Sir Ian Fraser: Will the right hon. Gentleman make clear what categories of Service men can be brought back—whether all or only some?

Mr. Shinwell: This arrangement applies to ex-miners in the Forces without regard to any particular category. If they wish to apply to return to the pits they may do so, but it does not follow that their application will always be favourably received.

Overseas Allowance, Hong Kong and Malaya

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Minister of Defence if he will grant local overseas allowances to Service personnel who have left their families in Hong Kong or Malaya.

Mr. Shinwell: Local overseas allowance is already paid to these families at a rate equivalent to the difference between the married and single rates for the station.

Brigadier Clarke: Does the Minister appreciate that yesterday the Secretary of State for War said that men serving in Korea have extra expenses? If they have left their wives behind in Malaya and Hong Kong they need extra money to sustain the same standard of living.

Mr. Shinwell: This has been in operation for some time and we have had no complaints about it.

Mr. A. R. W. Low: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that N.A.A.F.I. prices seem to have risen quite recently, and is it not about time to review the overseas allowance?

Mr. Shinwell: It is quite impossible, when there is some slight modification in price levels, to adjust the pay code.

Air Commodore Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman said that there have been no complaints. Does that not show that he is out of touch with the military situation in Malaya?

Mr. Shinwell: We have repeatedly made clear to our command in Malaya and elsewhere, that if they wish to make any representations to us relating to the Forces under their command in any matter they should do so.

Major Legge-Bourke: Arising out of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low), will the right hon. Gentleman distinguish between the pay code and local overseas allowances? They are quite a different matter.

Mr. Shinwell: That is quite a different question, too.

Recalled Reservists (Bounty)

Mr. Low: asked the Minister of Defence whether he has yet reached a decision concerning the payment of £4 bounties to officers who are to be called up for 15 days' service this summer.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, Sir. The £4 bounty which is to be paid to soldiers and airmen of the Z and G Reserve will also be payable to officers of comparable classes.

Mr. McAdden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the value of the £4 bounty is being considerably reduced by the failure of the Minister of Trans-port—

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary question must be relevant to the Question which has been asked.

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Minister of Defence what gratuities he proposes to recommend for Service personnel called up for the present emergency.

Mr. Shinwell: As stated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 29th January, Class Z and G reservists will receive a tax-free bounty of £4. As regards officers of comparable classes, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I have given today to the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low).

Mr. H. A. Price: Can the Minister yet answer a Question which I put to him a week ago with regard to the bounty of those men who are retained in the Services beyond their original enlistment period?

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. Member will appreciate that that is a much wider question.

Brigadier Clarke: Will the Minister try to bring the Navy and Army into line? The Secretary of State for War has now allowed gratuities to be paid to the Army, but the Navy will not do the same.

Mr. Shinwell: As the hon. and gallant Member is well aware, conditions in the three Services sometimes differ.

Service Personnel (Parliamentary Candidature)

Captain Ryder: asked the Minister of Defence by virtue of what authority Article 17A of King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions makes approval of an application by an officer or rating requesting retirement or discharge, with a view to his candidature for Parliament, dependent upon the exigencies of the Service; and to what extent this applies to the other Services.

Mr. Shinwell: This Regulation, and the corresponding regulations of the other Services, are made in pursuance of paragraph 5 of the Servants of the Crown (Parliamentary Candidature) Order, 1950. All decisions on requests to resign from the Service are taken in the exercise of the prerogative. In practice, a request to be released for the purpose of Parliamentary candidature would not be refused, save in exceptional circumstances where the interests of the Services would be seriously prejudiced.

Captain Ryder: How does the right hon. Gentleman account for the discrepancy between this Regulation and the Order in Council to which he referred on 7th February? Who decides the important issue as to whether the exigencies of the Service or of this honourable House should take priority?

Mr. Shinwell: Obviously, it must be the authorities.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman clear up the point about at what level in the Service Departments this decision, with its obvious political implications, will be taken?

Mr. Shinwell: I rather think at the highest level.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Minister?

Mr. Shinwell: It may not come to the Minister, but it would be considered at the highest military level.

Brigadier Clarke: Will the right hon. Gentleman try to make it as easy as possible this time, bearing in mind what he did to me last time?

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. and gallant Member deserved everything he got.

Sir Herbert Williams: He got in.

Mr. Shinwell: It does not seem to have done him much good.

Deserters (Amnesty)

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Minister of Defence if he will allow an amnesty or free pardon for all deserters, subject to their volunteering for three or more years in one of the Services.

Mr. Shinwell: No, Sir.

Brigadier Clarke: Does the Minister not realise that there are a lot of deserters now leading the lives of "spivs" in this country, and that if he gets them back into the Services they can do a useful job?

Mr. Shinwell: We no longer have room for "spivs" in the Services.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: In view of what now appears to be some measure of all-party support for the consideration of a conditional amnesty of some kind, will my right hon. Friend re-open his mind on this subject and see what can be done for these men? Will he ensure that they are not treated more unfavourably than certain Nazi war criminals?

Mr. Shinwell: We have given this matter careful consideration, and, indeed, have done so repeatedly and with the utmost good will, but we are assured that this would be quite an improper thing to do.

Brigadier Clarke: Will the Minister bear in mind that I did not say that the deserters were "spivs"? I said that they were leading the lives of "spivs."

GENERAL EISENHOWER (DUTIES)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence if he can now make a statement defining more clearly the duties of General Eisenhower.

Mr. Shinwell: At the time of his appointment, it was announced that General Eisenhower would have the authority to train the national units assigned to his command and to organise


them into an effective integrated defence force. General Eisenhower has now returned to Europe to assume his command.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: May I ask my right hon. Friend who pays General Eisenhower and how much?

Mr. Shinwell: The budget arrangements are now under active consideration.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's appreciation of General Eisenhower would he refute the totally false statements he made to the Foreign Press Association yesterday about our relations with America?

Mr. James Hudson: While, appreciating the value of General Eisenhower, might I ask whether it would not be wise to make much clearer the definition of his functions, in view of the uncertainties which arose in reference to General McArthur?

Mr. Shinwell: I have answered the Question as far as it permits, but no doubt there will be further clarification of the command organisation at a later stage.

Mr. Snow: In view of the rather embarrassing events at the Battle of Yorktown, and of the great traditions of the British Army, is it not very improper to have British troops under the command of an American general?

ATOMIC TESTS, UNITED STATES

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Minister of Defence what steps he is taking to obtain the fullest information as to the atomic tests conducted by the United States since 1946, and for the future.

Mr. Shinwell: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave him on 14th February on this subject.

Mr. Blackburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the war, at great expense to our own atomic effort, we gave the United States all possible help on the basis of equal partnership? Is it not now utterly wrong and utterly ungenerous on the part of the United States, as most Americans themselves think, that we now have only limited co-operation and are not allowed to have observers at their atomic tests?

Mr. Shinwell: I have given the answer to the Question. I shall say nothing which will exacerbate relations between ourselves and the United States.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Were any British observers present at the recent tests in Nevada, and has Lord Portal's committee received any official reports about those tests?

Mr. Shinwell: That is precisely the Question to which I replied on 14th February.

Mr. Blackburn: In view of the very grave consequences which are raised in this Question, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter at the earliest possible opportunity on the Adjournment.

FOOD SUPPLIES

Ships (Food Storage)

Mr. Osborne: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that the cost of storage of meat in hired vessels averages some 2½ times that of equivalent storage on land; and what steps he has taken to avoid this method of storage by quicker distribution of food.

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Food if, in view of the remarks of the Comptroller and Auditor General in Command Paper No. 93 concerning the cost of hiring 15 ships for cold storage at a cost of £609,248, he will in future arrange for imported food to be stored on land and so release ships for their normal services.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Frederick Willey): The arrangement referred to was quite exceptional. The comments of the Comptroller and Auditor General will be very carefully borne in mind by my Department.

Mr. Osborne: If and when more Argentine meat becomes available, will the Parliamentary Secretary see that it is not again held up in this sort of manner, and that it is quickly distributed to the public? Will he make that promise? Could I have an answer?

Sir W. Smithers: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary realise that interference by the Government by bulk purchase upsets the normal trade channels, and will end in disaster?

Mr. Willey: There were quite exceptional circumstances in this case—the heavy supplies which were arriving at the same time.

Mr. Keenan: Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us whether there is normally sufficient cold storage for goods in view of the fact that so much cold storage was destroyed during the war?

Mr. Willey: At the time there was not sufficient normal cold storage available. Of the 15 vessels of which use was made four were obsolete ships, three were ships immobilised by protracted repair jobs, and eight were ships which were seasonally surplus to trading needs.

Mr. John Tilney: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that cold storage equipment that is available on land is not being used at all?

Administration Costs

Mr. Osborne: asked the Minister of Food what recent attempts have been made to reduce the charge of £17,600,475 for administrative expenses of his Department.

Mr. F. Wiley: The figure quoted by the hon. Member refers to the financial year 1949–50. The equivalent provision for the current year is nearly £3 million lower. This is mainly due to constant efforts to effect economies through the amalgamation of certain regional offices, the concentration of local food offices and other changes which have resulted in a reduction of 9,300 in the staff of the Ministry.

Mr. Osborne: If economies amounting to £3 million have been effected on administration in his Department, does not the hon. Gentleman think that in the coming year another £3 million saving could be effected if the matter was properly attended to?

Sir H. Williams: Is it not the case that the administrative costs per pound of beef that we consume are higher than those paid last year?

GAMBIA (POULTRY SCHEME)

Mr. J. Griffiths: With permission, Sir, I will now make a statement in answer to Questions Nos. 29, 32, 40 and 41.

The Gambia poultry and general farming scheme was approved by the Board of the Corporation on 20th May, 1948, and sanction for the initial provision of capital in the sum of £500,000 was given on 21st July, 1948. After preliminary surveys, the Corporation began operations in the following year. Sanctions for the provision of additional capital amounting in all to £310,000 were given during 1949, and in addition, sanction was also given for the temporary loan to the scheme of £100,000 on 29th August, 1950. Up to date advances totalling £825,000 have been issued.
Good progress was made with the erection and stocking of the poultry houses; 38,620 eggs and 51,617 lb. of dressed poultry have been exported to this country. A further consignment of 7,000 lb. of poultry is on the way here, but the export of eggs, which is at present running at the rate of approximately 45,000 a month, has been discontinued and the farm's production is being disposed of locally.
There has been no fowl pest on the Corporation's farm, but during the summer of 1950 there were outbreaks of fowl typhoid, which caused the loss of 30,000 birds. It has since been brought under control by inoculation and the remaining stock of about 50,000 is in good condition. The laying stock took the brunt of the typhoid disease and, therefore, most of the poultry left is breeding stock, not laying stock, which explains the present low rate of egg production.
In December, 1950, the Board found that the situation was serious, and that a change of management was immediately required. The Board also sent a mission to the Gambia to investigate the scheme on the spot. The mission, consisting of Sir Ernest Wood, Joint Operations Controller; Dr. A. B. Fowler, Manager of the Animal Products Division, and Mr. A. M. Telford, Manager of the Agricultural Division, all members of the headquarters staff of the Corporation, left England at the beginning of this year and sent a preliminary report to the Corporation, whereupon the Chairman of the Corporation at once wrote to me, on 15th February, informing me of the position.
I regret to inform the House that, in the light of this preliminary report, it has become clear to the Board that sufficient feedingstuffs for the number of poultry it


had been intended to maintain cannot be grown on the land. Since the scheme as originally conceived stands or falls by the local production of feedingstuffs, the Board are of the opinion that they will have to modify the scheme considerably and to incur a loss in their accounts of a substantial proportion of the capital committed to the scheme. The Board will, however, remain liable to repay to His Majesty's Government the full amount of the capital advances made towards the scheme, and the interest due thereon.
The mission is now back in London and its report is being considered in detail by the Board. When that has been done, and the Board have formulated proposals for the future of the scheme, I will make a further statement to the House.

Mr. Hurd: May we have an assurance that no more of the British taxpayers' money will be put into this effort to clear the bush in the Gambia and create a sandy desert until we have had reliable and expert advice that proper use will be made of these resources? Further, can the Minister tell us how the birds that will survive are to be fed for the next few months?

Mr. Griffiths: As I said, this scheme was based upon the possibility of feedingstuffs being grown on the land. This has been found impossible, and I repeat what I said last week about the' matter: that this does create a very serious problem indeed for all colonial development. At the same time, let me say that if we are to solve these problems risks must be undertaken, and sometimes losses incurred.

Mr. Keeling: Are we to understand that the last director of the scheme was dismissed and did not resign, as was previously stated; and can the Minister say if it is true, as was reported in the "Daily Telegraph," that the new director of the scheme has stated, "I hate chickens"?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not know anything about the latter part of that supplementary question, but the responsibility for employing and dismissing staff is entirely for the Board.

Mr. Gammans: Is not it a fact that this scheme was launched, with resultant loss of taxpayers' money, without the

slightest experiment being made, either into the possibility of the growing of feedingstuffs or into the keeping of fowls in very large numbers in the tropics?

Mr. Griffiths: This scheme was launched after very full consideration by the Board, on which there sit very eminent and experienced business men.

Mr. Eden: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is that whereas when the scheme was launched the whole thing was admitted to depend on the local growing of feedingstuffs, it has only now been discovered that no such feedingstuffs can be grown? Can he further explain why the shortage is so great, considering that he has only half the number of poultry for which he originally budgeted, the other half having had to be killed already?

Mr. Griffiths: The knowledge which we now have that the ground will not grow the necessary feedingstuffs has been acquired after, the experience of two seasons and, if I may be allowed to say so, from my study of this problem. All we can get from the experts is the best advice they can give, but all of them say that in advice about Africa there are no precedents to guide them.

Mr. Eden: Will the right hon. Gentleman look up the assurances about this ability to grow local feedingstuffs given over and over again in response to Questions put over and over again and doubts expressed by my hon. Friends as to whether it could be done? As the whole scheme was based on it, why is it that only now, after all this time, it is discovered that feedingstuffs will not grow there at all?

Mr. Griffiths: As I have said, the advice given to the Board justified them in going on. All advice on this problem was given with the one consideration in mind that it was the best advice which could be given, but that there was no experience.

Mr. Harold Davies: In view of the fact that so much so-called private businessmen's expert advice seems to be clearly wrong, is it not time that the Government weighed with caution that advice and applied their own policy rather than take that advice?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As the right hon. Gentleman has referred to eminent advice, may I ask whether the work of the Medical Research Council was ever considered while this scheme was in its early stages, or better still, before it started: and, second, what possible justification was there for the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs being allowed to say in the House, as recently as last April, that 20 million eggs a year would be coming to the British market?

Mr. Griffiths: All the answers given about projects under the jurisdiction of the C.D.C. are given in the House after consultation with them. I could not, without notice, say what advice was sought at the early stages—in 1948.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can my right hon. Friend say who the experienced businessmen were and whether they were trained under private enterprise?

Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Frind can look at the composition of the Board. We have all done our best—including my predecessor and myself—to see that there was the widest possible business experience on the Board.

Sir W. Smithers: Are the Government so obsessed with vanity and drugged with power that, despite all the experience of the last six years in nationalised industries, they are still determined to enact ideologies and slogans, and damn the consequences?

Mr. Griffiths: The Government are determined to do everything in their power to develop the colonial territories, which have been neglected for generations by the party opposite.

Mr. Eden: In view of the seriousness of the situation revealed by the right hon. Gentleman's answer, we shall, of course, seek a convenient opportunity to debate the matter.

Mr. Grimond: Will the scheme now depend on imported feedingstuffs, and, if so, would it not be better to wind it up and bring the feedingstuffs to this country? Second, did I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that the moneys advanced would be repaid? If so, from what source will they come?

Mr. Griffiths: I will answer the last part of that question first. The Board is running 50 schemes and projects at the moment and it has an obligation, taking them together, and one with another, to make them commercial successes. When the Board was initiated it was accepted, as I hope it is by everyone, that the Board must sometimes take risks which might cause losses. Unless it does take risks, it would be impossible for us to do this job at all. In answer to the first part of the question, the Board is now considering in detail the report of the mission which has now returned. It will formulate new proposals and, when they are ready, I will make a further statement to the House.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTION

RE-ARMAMENT (COLONIAL RESOURCES)

Mr. McKibbin: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 16th March, I shall call attention to the greater use of colonial manpower and resources in re-armament, and move a Resolution.

HIGHLAND TRANSPORT

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 16th March, I shall call attention to the difficulties of Highland transport, and move a Resolution.

RAW MATERIALS (INTERNATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS)

Mr. George Craddock: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 16th March, I shall call attention to the need for international arrangements for the acquisition and allocation of scarce raw materials, and move a Resolution.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (AMENDMENT) (No. 2)

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the provisions of Section 52 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, with reference to the assessment of compensation for the compulsory acquisition of owner-occupied dwelling-houses.
The purpose of this Bill can be very shortly stated. The Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, provides that where a public authority acquires an individual's property by compulsory purchase, compensation shall not, for the present, include any payment for vacant possession. Whatever may be the justice of applying that method of assessing compensation to property which is held for investment purposes, quite different considerations apply when it is adopted in the case of dwelling-houses occupied by their owners. In that case, it produces great injustice.
Put in its simplest fashion, a public authority may turn a man out of his house and pay him compensation which is deliberately and expressly assessed at a figure which will be insufficient to enable him to purchase another house with vacant possession. That is what is happening under the Act of 1947. Put in those terms, I do not believe that an hon. Member, on either side of the House—apart from other considerations—would not admit the injustice which the Bill I desire to introduce seeks to remedy.
I believe that some hon. Members may still entertain a lingering suspicion that some special sanctity still attaches to an Englishman's home; but, alas, that has long ceased to be the case. But I am sure that many hon. Members would be surprised to know that, if a local authority happens to take a fancy to a certain house or garden for the purpose of building a new school or, perhaps, for widening a street, the council cannot only have the occupier turned out but can refuse to pay compensation which would be sufficient to enable him to obtain another house with vacant possession. Even Naboth was offered full money compensation for his vineyard before more drastic methods of compulsory acquisition were applied to him.
The House must not imagine that these cases are infrequent or exceptional. I

have not been able to ascertain the number of such cases which have occurred throughout the country; but in London alone during the four years from 1946 to 1949, a time when the London County Council were frequently acquiring sites for many different purposes, the council made no fewer than 374 compulsory purchase orders on dwelling-houses occupied by their owners. Of those 374 cases, the Minister of Health confirmed orders in respect of 267. This is not something which is exceptional or unusual. I am told that the projected extension of the London Airport at Heathrow will involve the compulsory acquisition of about 250 owner-occupied dwelling-houses by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and so far as I can make out, this method of assessing compensation is to be applied to these houses.
I should like to give the House some particulars of one or two cases which have come to my notice. The first is that of an elderly man, nearly 70 years of age, living with his wife, married son and two grandchildren. They occupied previously a three-storeyed house with three-quarters of an acre of garden. His advisers estimated the value of the house at about £2,000, and he himself tells me that he could probably sell it with vacant possession for £3,000. The acquiring authority have offered him £925. I should like to read to the House an extract from a letter which he wrote to me. He says:
My wife and I, since December, 1947, have not had a moment's peace of mind. We even wake up in the night and talk about it, and wonder how long it will he before we are turned out of our house.
I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will think that that was a very pathetic letter to receive. It is perfectly true that this man has been offered accommodation in a council house, but a council house is a poor substitute for a man's own home. I want, if I may, to read an extract from another letter which he wrote to me the other day about his council house. This is what he says:
We should just have completed our purchase of 'Chestnut Villas '"—
that was where he lived before—
and were looking forward to paying no more rent. We have to pay 24s, 4d. a week here, so that, at that rate, they will soon get back the £1,000 which they propose to pay us for Chestnut Villas.


That is the difference between a home of one's own and life in a council house. I have a number of other cases which I could quote, but my time is coming to an end. [Laughter.] I am astonished that hon. Members should laugh at the misfortunes of these unhappy people. I hope the House will be willing to give me leave to introduce this Bill.

Mr. Ronald Williams: I sincerely hope that the House will reject the Motion which has been proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford, North (Mr. G. Hutchinson). [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame.") Before hon. Members opposite cry "Shame," I really think they should listen to the arguments. The House has listened to the arguments which have been put forward by the hon. and learned Gentleman before today; that is to say, when this matter came up for consideration in 1947, there was a debate in this House for over an hour on the Re-commital Stage of the 1947 Bill, and the arguments were put forward at that time. It was anticipated that this type of objection might well arise. It is right that the House should consider today some of the reasons which prompted the House at that time to decide, by a Division, that it could not accept the point of view which has been put forward today.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: rose—

Mr. R. Williams: I cannot give way in a debate on the Ten Minutes Rule.
The first point I want to make as strongly as I can is that, in matters of this sort, there is obviously the public interest to be considered and the sectional interest. In my submission, the sectional interest was fully considered during the discussion on the 1947 Bill, and one of the points which was very clearly established was that the owner-occupier who was then in the position that he was to receive the 1939 value, plus 60 per cent., was to be placed in a better position, and that was the effect of the Section of that Act to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred.
The owner-occupier was placed in a better position by the Act of 1947 than he had been in before, and, in putting him in that better position, Parliament decided that, from that point onwards, the value of the property should be taken at its full market price subject to a deduction; that is to say, the obliga-

tion of paying that scarcity value should not rest upon the public authority, but that that value should be subject to a notional lease which had approximately six and a quarter years to run—a lease which would expire on 1st January, 1954. Therefore, this Section not only improved the lot of the owner-occupier but it went further than that, and it made provisions so that, as time went on, the prices which owner-occupiers would receive would increase, and this matter would resolve itself under this Section by 1st January, 1954. That being so, I ask the House to say that the owner-occupier is at present in a better position than he has been previously.
I should like to call attention to a wrong impression which might be given by some of the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman. Although cases such as those to which he referred undoubtedly exist—and I do not need to enter into the merits of these particular cases—it is a fact that some of the owner-occupiers do not require alternative accommodation. Others can obtain alternative accommodation under the provisions of the Act, leaving a very small number of cases of the type mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite know that I give way easily enough when there is a full debate, but, under the Ten Minutes Rule, it must not be regarded as discourtesy if I do not give way.
The final point I wish to make is this. On the particular cases to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, if one considers them on the basis of extreme hardship, that sort of problem cannot, in my submission, be dealt with by an Amendment of this Section of the 1947 Act. To deal with that type of case, it would be necessary to engage in retrospective legislation. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. and learned Gentleman nods his head, and I would say to those of his hon. Friends on the opposite side who are not nodding their heads in support of my observations that they should get their hon. and learned Friend to explain to them what is involved. In my submission, the House should oppose this proposal because the remedy that is proposed is much worse than the disease to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred.

Question put, pursuant Order Standing No. 12.

The House divided: Ayes; 222; Noes, 245.

Division No. 44.]
AYES
[4.0 p.m.


Aitken, W. T
Hay, John
Perkins, W. R. D.


Alport, C. J. M.
Head, Brig, A. H
Peto, Brig, C. H. M.


Arbuthnot, John
Heald, Lionel
Pickthorn, K.


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Heath, Edward
Pitman, I. J.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Powell, J. Enoch


Ayles, W. H.
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Baker, P. A. D.
Higgs, J. M. C.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Profumo, J. D.


Baldwin, A. E
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Raikes, H. V.


Beamish, Major Tufton
Hirst, Geoffrey
Rayner, Brig. R


Bell, R. M.
Hollis, M. C.
Redmayne, M


Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Renton, D. L. M.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Hope, Lord John
Roberts Emrys (Merioneth)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Howard, Greville (St. Ives)
Roberts, Major Peter (Heeley)


Bevins, J. R. (Liverpool, Toxteth)
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N,.)
Robertson, Sir David (Caithness)


Bishop, F. P.
Hudson, Rt. Hon. Robert (Southport)
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Black, C. W.
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Robson-Brown, W


Blackburn, A. R.
Hurd, A. R.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Hutchison, Lt.-com. Clark (E'L'rgh W.)
Roper, Sir Harold


Bower, Norman
Hutchison, Colonel James
Ross. Sir Ronald (Londonderry)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A
Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.
Russell, R. S.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Jeffreys, General Sir George
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D


Braine, B. R.
Johnson, Major Howard (Kemptown)
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Savory, Prof. D. L


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Scott, Donald


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T
Kaberry, D.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Bullock, Capt. M.
Keeling, E. H.
Smith, E. Martin (Grantham)


Butcher, H. W.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)


Garr, Robert (Mitcham)
Langford-Holt, J.
Smyth, Brig. J. G, (Norwood)


Channon, H.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Snadden, W. McN.


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Soames, Capt. C.


Clyde, J L
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert (llford, S.)
Lindsay, Martin
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Corbett, Lt.-Col. Uvedale (Ludlow)
Linstead, H. N
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard (N. Fylde)


Craddock, G. B. (Spelthorne)
Llewellyn, D.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Cranborne, Viscount
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (King's Norton)
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Storey, S.


Crouch, R. F.
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)
Low, A. R. W.
Studholme, H. G.


Cundiff, F. W.
Lucas, P. B (Brentford)
Sutcliffe, H.


Davies, Nigel (Epping)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)


de Chair, Somerset
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Deedes, W. F.
McAdden, S. J.
Teevan, T. L.


Dlgby, S. W.
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Thompson, Kenneth Pugh (Walton)


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
McKibbin, A.
Thompson, Lt.-Cmdr. R. (Croydon, W.


Donner, P. W.
MeKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thorneycroft, Peter (Monmouth)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Maclay, Hon. John
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Drayson, G. B.
Maclean, Fitzroy
Thorp, Brig. R. A. F.


Drews, C.
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Tilney, John


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Touche, G. C.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Turner, H. F. L.


Fisher, Nigel
Macpherson, Major Niall (Dumfries)
Turton, R. H.


Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Maitland, Cmdr. J. W.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fort, R.
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)
Vosper, D. F.


Fraser, Sir I. (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Maude, Angus (Ealing, S.)
Wade, D. W.


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Maudling R.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. A. (Pollok)
Mellor, Sir John
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Molson, A. H. E.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Gammans, L. D.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Garner-Evans, E. H. (Denbigh)
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Watkinson, H.


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Webbe, Sir Harold


George, Lady Megan Lloyd
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Wheatley, Major M. J. (Poole)


Glyn, Sir Ralph
Nicholson, G.
Williams, Charles (Torquay)


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Grimond, J.
Nutting, Anthony
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Oakshott, H. D.
Wills, G.


Grimston, Robert (Westbury)
Odey, G. W.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Harden, J. R. E.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Wood, Hon. R.


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
York, C.


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)



Harvey, Air Codre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Osborne, C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Harvie-Watt, Sir G. S.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson and




Mr. Derek Walker-Smith.




NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Gunter, R. J
Oliver, G. H.


Adams, H. R.
Hale, Joseph (Rochdale)
Orbach, M.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Padley, W. E.


Allen, Schoiefield (Crewe)
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Dearwe V'lly)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Hamilton, W. W.
Pannell, T. C.


Awbery, S. S.
Harman, W.
Pargiter, G. A.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Hardman, D. R
Paton, J.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Hardy, E. A.
Pearson, A.


Bartley, P.
Hargreaves, A.
Popplewell, E.


Benn, Wedgwood
Harrison, J.
Porter, G.


Benson, G.
Hastings, S.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Beswick, F.
Hayman, F. H.
Proctor, W. T.


Bing, G. H. C
Herbison, Miss M.
Pryde, D. J.


Blenkinsop, A.
Hobson, C. R.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Blyton, W. R.
Holman, P.
Rankin, J.


Boardman, H.
Holmes, Horace Hemsworth)
Rees, Mrs. D.


Bottomley, A. G.
Houghton, D.
Reeves, J.


Bowden, H. W.
Hoy, J.
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Bowles, F. G, (Nuneaton)
Hubbard, T.
Reid, William (Camlachie)


Brockway, A. F.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Rhodes, H.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Richards, R.


Brooks, T. J. (Normanton)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Robens, A.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Brown, George (Belper)
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Robinson, Kenneth (St Paneras, N.)


Burke, W. A.
Janner, B.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)


Callaghan, L. J.
Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)
Royle, C.


Carmichael, J.
Jenkins, R. H.
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Champion, A. J.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Simmons, C. J.


Clunie, J.
Jones, William Elwyn (Conway)
Slater, J.


Cocks, F. S.
Keenan, W.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Coldriek, W.
Kenyon, C.
Snow, J. W.


Collick, P.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Sorensen, R. W


Collindridge, F.
Kinley, J.
Sparks, J. A.


Cook, T. F.
Kirkwood, Rt. Hon. D.
Steele, T.


Cooper, Geoffrey (Middlesbrough, W.)
Lang, Gordon
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Cove, W. G.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Crawley, A.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Lindgren, G. S.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith


Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Sylvester, G. O.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McAllister, G.
Taylor, Robert (Morpeth)


Deer, G.
MacColl, J. E.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Delargy, H. J.
McGhee, H. G.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Diamond, J.
McGovern, J.
Thomas, Iorworth (Rhondda, W.)


Dodds, N. N.
McInnes, J.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Donnelly, D.
Mack, J. D.
Thorneyeroft, Harry (Clayton)


Driberg, T. E. N.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Thurtle, Ernest


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Mackay, R. W. G. (Reading, N.)
Usborne, H.


Dye, S.
McLeavy, F
Vernon, W. F.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Viant, S. P.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Wallace, H. W.


Edwards, W, J. (Stepney)
Mainwaring, W. H.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
West, D. G.


Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. (Edinb'gh, E.)


Ewart, R.
Man[...]el, A. C.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Fernyhough, E.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Finch, H. J.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. G.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W


Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Mellish, R. J.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Follick, M.




Foot, M. M.
Messer, F.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland)


Forman, J. C.
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mikardo, Ian
Williams, David (Neath)


Freeman, John (Watford)
Mitchison, G. R.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Monslow, W.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N
Moody, A. S.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'lly)


Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Gibson, C. W.
Morley, R.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Gilzean, A.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Glanville, James (Consett)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Gooch, E. G.
Mort, D. L.
Wise, F. J.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)
Moyle, A.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Grey, C. F.
Murray, J. D.
Wyatt, W. L.


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Nally, W.
Younger, Hon. K.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanefly)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)



Griffiths, W. D. (Exchange)
Oldfield, W. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Poole and Mr. John E. Haire.


Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — EXPORT GUARANTEES [MONEY]

Resolution reported:

That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide that any power which is or was conferred on the Board of Trade by the Export Guarantees Act, 1949, or by the Export Guarantees Acts, 1939 to 1948, to give guarantees to or for the benefit of a person shall be taken to extend and have extended to the giving to him of certain similar undertakings in relation to the business of any company controlled by him, and to the giving of guarantees and undertakings to or for the benefit of any such company, it is expedient to authorise any increase (attributable to the making of such provision by the Act of the present Session) in the sums which under section three or four of the Export Guarantees Act, 1949, are to be or may he paid out of moneys provided by Parliament, charged on or issued out of the Consolidated Fund, raised by borrowing or paid into the Exchequer.

Orders of the Day — EXPORT GUARANTEES BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Clause l.—(EXTENSION OF POWERS OF BOARD OF TRADE UNDER 12 & 13 GEO. 6. c. 14.]

4.12 p.m.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I beg to move, in page 1, line 11. to leave out "or indirectly."
When we debated the Second Reading of this Bill a number of questions arose about the scope of the powers that were given granting guarantees of subsidiaries. I asked a specific question whether the guarantee would be dependent upon the shareholding of the British parent company and we were told by the Secretary for Overseas Trade that that was not so. We were told that in fact the guarantee could be given to a company which had only 35 per cent. of its capital owned in this country, provided that the Board of Trade were satisfied that, through some arrangements between the parent company and the subsidiary, direct control was possible.
It became clear that the Government were asking for unlimited powers on their behalf to select whatever type of subsidiary they thought might be necessary or advantageous for the furtherance of

the work of the Board of Trade. I do not think that is right. I think that we want to have in this Bill a limitation that we should only extend these guarantees where there is direct control by this country over the subsidiary overseas.
I give one example. The Secretary for Overseas Trade said that under the existing Acts offshore purchases could be financed and guarantees given. One could have the position of offshore goods being bought by one British subsidiary and transferred to another British subsidiary for end sale in another country. That is most dangerous and is extending too far the powers for which this type of legislation was envisaged. We should go far enough if we left it where a company has direct control. By all means let us extend the facilities which this Bill was designed to provide, but when it comes to companies "directly or indirectly" owned obviously it can cover anything.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): I think I can see what the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre), is getting at in this Amendment because he gave us some introduction to his views on Second Reading. I think I can satisfy him that these words "or indirectly" are a desirable and necessary part of the Bill. His arguments were mainly deployed to deal with the case in which he might feel the control was to some extent ineffective. I agree that it would be most undesirable if these powers were used where there was not effective control by the parent company in the United Kingdom. But the words "or indirectly" do not, in any way, raise the question of effectiveness of control.
4.15 p.m.
Perhaps I might illustrate this by a simple example, and I assure the hon. and gallant Member that the example I am taking is based on a particular fact, on a particular company and subsidiary which has made an approach to the Export Credits Guarantee Department. I am sure the Committee would not press me to give the name of the company, for obvious reasons. Here is a very well-known firm in this country which contributes greatly to export trade in many overseas countries. Like many other companies, it does overseas sales by means of subsidiary companies covering a wide area. It might, for instance, cover


Western Europe, South-East Asia, or North America—whatever it might be.
For reasons which seem good to this company, perhaps because of individual difficulties within a country in such a wide area, it does its sales in a particular country in that area through a subsidiary of its first subsidiary. It is obviously necessary in order that the parent company's export drive can be fully maintained, that there should be powers in this Bill to provide cover in respect of the transactions of the "sub-subsidiary," if I may use that expression. There have been cases of that kind. The case I have mentioned is based on a well-known company.
I agree with what I think is in the mind of the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest that the important thing is that the sub-subsidiary should be effectively controlled by the main subsidiary. If we delete these two words "or indirectly" I am advised it would not be possible to provide cover for the third company, that is the sub-subsidiary. But I accept the principle that there should be effective control, and I assure the hon. and gallant Member that the Export Credits Guarantee Department, who have the administrative responsibility for this, carry out to the full the intention of the hon. and gallant Member in ensuring that the company in respect of which cover is sought is effectively controlled by the parent company in the United Kingdom, however that control might be exercised.
The mere fact that it goes through a second party to the main subsidiary does not derogate from the effectiveness of the control. I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that this point has been very fully discussed by the Department, but if we accept the Amendment in the form in which it is put it would limit the powers of the Export Credits Guarantee Department to provide very valuable aid for this particular form of overseas sales.

Mr. Leslie Hale: It seems to me that the words "directly or indirectly" might very well be omitted altogether. The effective word is "controlled" and I quite accept my right hon. Friend's point that the sub-subsidiary may present difficulty. There is another difficulty. There are cases now, and they are increasing, where one has one or two com-

panies which jointly form a subsidiary in America or elsewhere and where one has one or two companies very often in different lines joining together in forming a subsidiary to promote export trade. Neither of these companies actually has control. They could come within the provisions of this Bill but it seems that they do not come within this Clause at all. The word "controlled" is the effective word. That emerged right through the speech of the Secretary for Overseas Trade.
So long as the word "controlled" remains it does lay down something that can be capable of legal definition, and I should have thought that it meant there is some clear control of voting power. Whether it be through shares or articles of association, there must be a voting power. It may be a joint voting power. Therefore, I suggest that my right hon. Friend might consider that point and see if there could be some variation which would make it clear that so long as control is exercised by appropriate firms it does not matter whether it is by only one firm.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: We are very grateful to the President of the Board of Trade for his explanation, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) will probably be willing to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I am not a lawyer and I am, therefore, at some disadvantage, but it seems to me that the difficulty arises from the definition of the word "control." The right hon. Gentleman has been at pains repeatedly to use the phrase "effective control." I do not know whether the difficulty could be surmounted by asking leave to insert the word "effectively" to make clear what both sides of the Committee have in mind. Perhaps the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Leslie Hale) would tell us if that would add to the effectiveness of the words, but I think it would be desirable to make clear in the Bill that what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind is effective control. If he would consider that, it might solve the problem for the moment.

Mr. H. Wilson: Taking first the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), I must confess


that I think he has got something when he says that it might not spoil the Bill and might improve its clarity and brevity to delete the words "directly or indirectly." I agree that what we are after is control; and, speaking as a layman, I should have thought that if we say "control" we mean both direct and indirect control. I am advised, however, that there might be some lingering doubt in some places about that, and that is why we have inserted the words "directly or indirectly." I agree—and I think some lawyers would agree—with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, who speaks with far more authority than I do on these legal aspects that the word "control" would cover the point we all have in mind.
In reply to the point made by the right hon. Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson), I am sure we are all after the same thing—namely, that the control must be effective. It became clear when the hon. and gallant Member was moving his Amendment that effectiveness is what he is after, and I did seriously consider in advance whether it would be desirable at some later stage to insert the word "effectively." But after full consultation with the Export Credits Guarantee Department I can give the Committee the most complete assurance that they neither intended in the past nor intend in the future to make use of the powers given in this Bill unless they are completely satisfied about the effectiveness of the control.
I am sure that hon. Members who have had experience of the Department know that however adventurous they are in their general overseas dealings, they are at the same time extremely cautious in this kind of case where the question of the value of the risk is concerned. I hope the Committee will be prepared to accept my assurance that the Export Credits Guarantee Department have in mind exactly what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has in mind, and will give effect to it.

Mr. Leslie Hale: May I make this point to my right hon. Friend? Suppose three companies, A, B, and C, in Britain, all making different things or dealing in different trades, join together to form a wholly-owned subsidiary in New York or Montreal. Does that come within the Clause? Each of the controlling companies has a

33⅓ interest but has not any control by itself.

Mr. Wilson: I see my hon. Friend's point. This is a point which I know the Department have in mind, and I should like to consider it against the background of the Bill. I think the point is that the Department want to be satisfied that there is direct control by one of the companies before they are satisfied about entering into this business. If they thought that the control exercised by one of the companies on behalf of all three was sufficient, then under this Bill they would he prepared to give the cover necessary.

Mr. Hale: Perhaps I may just emphasise this point. Here is a wholly-owned subsidiary, but no one company exercises control by itself; that is a deliberate point of policy. But all three together have complete control. It is deliberately arranged that no one company shall have control, for reasons which are quite obvious.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause.—(SECTION I NOT TO APPLY TO PERSON OR COMPANY IN COUNTRIES DISCRIMINATING AGAINST U.K.)
No guarantee given under section one of this Act shall apply to any person (whether a company or not) situate in a country which at the time such guarantee is made by the Board has discriminatory financial provisions in force affecting the interests of the United Kingdom —[Colonel Crosthw aite-Eyre.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause covers only a small point. but I hope that both, sides of the Committee will agree that we do not want to see credits given and trade encouraged by the use of public money when the country to which the goods are to be sent is one which is using financial discrimination against this country. I have particularly in mind cases where the country has a special rate for export payments which is very different from the internal value of her currency. A country which


falls under that heading straightaway is the Argentine where the rate of pesos for export is something like half what it is for internal transactions.
I also have in mind the case of countries which refuse to honour their existing financial arrangements with this country: for instance, a country which will not allow remittances to be sent to this country. We do not want to see the Export Credits Guarantee Department used to facilitate trade with such a country. Where satisfactory conditions exist then let us use this Department, but let us only use it when we are satisfied that the benefit coming back to us will be a true and proper one, and that we shall not suffer because of the action of the country to which the goods are to be exported.

Mr. H. Wilson: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks make a little clearer the intention he had when he put down this new Clause. I am bound to say that after reading through the Clause a number of times, even with the help of eminent legal advisers, I found it difficult to see what he was after.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I took great pains to inform the Department exactly what the Clause was meant to do before it was put on the Order Paper.

Mr. Wilson: I was going on to deal with that point. By other channels I was made fully aware of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman meant, but I was saying that his remarks have made it rather more clear to the Committee at large than the actual wording on the Order Paper.
I feel that my approach—and, I hope, the approach of the Committee generally —to this point is a little different from our approach to the Amendment which the hon. and gallant Gentleman moved where we were all at one with the purpose of the Amendment, and the only question was whether it was necessary to state the purpose. Here I am bound to say that I think it would have a very serious effect on this Bill if we were to accept this Amendment, and, indeed, if we were to apply the principle of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Clause to the whole operations of the Export Credits Guarantee Department, because a great part of the utility of the Department would be removed.
4.30 p.m.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman has made two points: first of all, that the Department should not operate the powers given in this Bill in the case of countries where there are these discriminatory financial arrangements. I join with him in deploring these discriminatory financial arrangements and I think hon. Members in all parts of the Committee are well aware of the difficulties they create for our exporters. At the same time, to say that countries with these discriminatory exchange rates, which have caused difficulties, or similar provisions should not be the subject of special cover by the Export Credits Guarantee Department would destroy a great part of the usefulness of that Department.
After all, the Department does not exist mainly to provide cover against the normal risks of fair weather trade. It exists to provide cover against some of the risks we get in the stormy seas through which we have been passing in the last few years, and many of the exporters and potential exporters coming to the Department have had particularly in mind the fact that they would feel doubtful about embarking upon those stormy seas without some insurance policy from the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
On the other hand, I think I am expressing agreement with the hon. and gallant Gentleman when I say that the Department is extremely cautious about the extent to which it would enter into any policies where the discriminatory financial provisions were such as to make it unlikely that the Department would get its money back. The Department has to behave in a commercial manner so far as Section 1 of the 1949 Act is concerned. It operates with the extremely valuable and shrewd advice of the advisory committee, and certainly if the financial provisions and financial discrimination referred to by the hon. and gallant Member were such as to make it unlikely that the Department would see its money back, taking one case with another, obviously that would not be a commercial risk and the Department would not embark upon it, unless it was decided to do so on much broader grounds of policy under Section 2 of the Act.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman gave a second illustration of the kind of thing


he has in mind, and I am bound to say that I am much more closely with him on the second illustration than I was on the first. His second illustration raised the question of remittances, and I quite agree that if the Export Credits Guarantee Department were to underwrite business undertaken by subsidiaries or, in the phrase I used previously and for which I apologised, sub-subsidiaries in conditions in which the profits of those companies could not be remitted to this country because of discriminatory exchange regulations on the part of the country concerned, that, of course, would be very bad business for the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
The Department have taken the line on previous occasions, and will certainly take the same line under the Bill now before the Committee, that if the restrictions on the remittance of profits and other earnings were such that the Department felt there was not a good commercial risk involved, then of course the powers in the Bill would not be operated. That would be ordinary commercial prudence on the part of the Department.
In so far as the hon. and gallant Gentleman is concerned about remittances in relation to subsidiary companies, I agree with him and I can give him an assurance, once again, that in their ordinary day-to-day administration the Department will take full account of the point he and I have in mind. In so far as he suggests that we could use the Export Credits Guarantee Department in effect to restrict and penalise business with countries who exercise these unfortunate and regrettable discriminatory financial arrangements, I think that if we were to do so we should be cutting away the ground for the existence of the Department itself.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I do not wish to detain the Committee, but I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his very careful answer. It seems to me that when we have only a limited amount of exports it is a pity that they should go to countries from which we receive less in return than would be the case if we enjoyed the normal terms of trade. Undoubtedly, the Department can play a tremendous part in helping exports to reach markets which are in the national interest, and I put down this Clause to try to prevent exports from being wasted

by being sent to countries where, because of financial discrimination of one sort or another, they would not earn their proper and just return for this country. I thank the President for what he has said about sub-subsidiaries and remittances. I am sorry he will not go the whole way with me, but I am grateful for what he has said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill reported without Amendment read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — ALKALI, &c., WORKS REGULATION (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Collindridge.]

4.38 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I beg to move, "That the debate be now adjourned."
There does not seem to be any Minister here and I do not think we can possibly allow the Bill to go forward in the absence of all the responsible Ministers. There is the Secretary of State, two Joint Under-Secretaries and two Law Officers—five Ministers in all; but none of them is present in the House when a Bill is being brought forward—and a Bill, let it be remembered, which has been considered in Committee upstairs so that this is the first time the House has had an opportunity of considering it. I do not think we should proceed with this business in the absence of all the responsible Ministers of the Crown.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The Question I have to put is, "That the debate be now adjourned."

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East): I should like to oppose the Motion [Horn. MEMBERS: "You cannot."] I do not know whether hon Members opposite are suggesting that I am out of order in opposing a Motion that the debate should be adjourned. I am well aware of occasions when this kind of thing has happened. There are precedents in Parliamentary history of procedure when a Motion is before the House that the dis-


cussion on Third Reading should be adjourned. I have no doubt that it is normal that there should be a Minister present on these occasions. I see that one of the Joint Under-Secretaries has just arrived, so it is only a matter of time before the Minister appears to deal with the Third Reading. I hope we shall allow the Third Reading to proceed in the normal way.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Surely the Minister or at any rate one Scottish hon. Member might speak on this matter. No Scottish Member of any kind has spoken from the opposite side of the House.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has already spoken once. The Question before the House is, "That the debate be now adjourned."

Captain Crookshank: Could we not at least have an explanation from a competent Minister as to why this debate should not be adjourned? I am not at all satisfied to have only the views of an English, London Member on this point.

4.40 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): I have not the slightest idea why the debate should be adjourned.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: Because there was no Minister here to move the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Fraser: There is one here now, and since I am here I have not the slightest idea why we should adjourn this matter. It seems to me that if the House wishes to debate the Third Reading of this Bill there is no reason why it should not do so. If hon. Members wish me to say a word or two about it, I am perfectly willing to do so. In' the circumstances I do not know what argument can be adduced in favour of adjournment. I may say that I feel very guilty that I was not in my place when this Business was reached. I was in the House 10 minutes ago, and I had the impression that the business then being taken would continue for some little time, and so I went out to get a cup of tea, which I managed to get, although I have not had time to consume it. I apologise to the House for not having been here.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: In the circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. McKie: Of course, I fully join with my hon. and right hon. Friends in accepting the full though somewhat belated apology which the Joint Under-Secretary of State has made for his late attendance. I hope that now that the hon. Gentleman has come to the Chamber, and as he has indicated that he would be willing to say a word or two about the Bill, that he will give a few words of explanation of this Measure. I do not rise with any intention of opposing the Third Reading, but, after all, this is the only opportunity which this House has had to discuss it. Since we have agreed to the change in our procedure regarding the passage of Scottish Measures on Second Reading and in Committee, this is the only chance that the whole House of Commons—English and Welsh Members as well as Scottish representatives —has of discussing a Measure such as this.
It may only be of local importance to Scotland; it does, however, raise an important point in domestic affairs for this country, as it seeks to prevent the extension—so far as legislation is capable of preventing such an extension—of noxious and offensive gases in the northern country. Considerable time was given to this inoffensive Measure in the Scottish Grand Committee when the Committee was considering the general principles of the Bill prior to Second Reading, and also when we came to the Committee stage. The Joint Under-Secretary of State, I think, will remember that he did not expect that the Committee stage of the Bill would be nearly as protracted as it was.
Now, as I say, I do not rise with any intention of opposing this Measure, but I think that it is due to the House of Commons as a whole, and especially, if I may say so without offence, because of the belated appearance of the hon. Gentleman, that we should have a word of explanation of the general principles of this Bill before it leaves us. I am well aware, of course, that on the Third Reading of any Bill one cannot in any way seek to object by way of proposing an Amendment to anything which is con-


tained in it; we can only finally approve or condemn it. I, for one, am certainly prepared to approve it, but that does not preclude me or any other hon. Member from saying a word or two by way of caution as to the working of any one or all of the Clauses of the Bill.
I desire, of course, to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the Bill forward. I think he sought to take credit to himself on Second Reading for having carried a step further legislation which this House agreed to some 45 or 50 years ago. I think that it was in 1906 when the first legislation was brought forward with regard to noxious or offensive gases. The hon. Gentleman certainly said so on the Second Reading, and I only say in passing, by way of illustration, that that Measure was carried through in 1906 by a Radical Government—I think I shall have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson Stewart), in saying that—but I am delighted to think that it was a Conservative Government in 1926 which carried—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not see any of this history in the Bill, as it presents itself to me on the Third Reading.

Mr. McKie: I had no intention of trespassing beyond the bounds of order. I was about to conclude by saying that it was 20 years later that a Conservative Government carried the legislation a step further, and I was about to offer my congratulations, on the Third Reading of this Bill, to the Joint Under-Secretary of State, as one of the Ministers for Scotland in a Socialist Government, on carrying the legislation another step.
If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to reply by giving a word or two of explanation of this Measure I would enter a caveat with regard to Clause 2, where there is considerable provision for entry by inspectors into works to see if the provisions of the Bill are being carried out with regard to the emission of offensive or noxious gases—to see that they are not being extended any further. I hope that there will be no unnecessary, fussy—I think that that is the best word to use—interference by these, no doubt, excellent gentlemen who will be employed by the Scottish Office to see that the provisions of this Clause 2 are being carried out. He will remember well that

on the Committee stage my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling), pressed him very hard on the matter, and if the hon. Gentleman is prepared now to say a word or two about how it is proposed to put into operation the working of that Clause I think he will satisfy the wishes of this House as a whole. With that, my only word of protest, I assure the Joint Under-Secretary of State that I shall be very glad to see the Bill read the Third time.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The Joint Under-Secretary of State indicated that he was willing to say a word or two, and I think that there are one or two things he should say. The hon. Gentleman was, of course, pressed during the proceedings—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak. He moved that the debate be adjourned, and he has thereby—

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I spoke on the Motion for the Adjournment, but I have not spoken in the debate on this Question.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman did, in fact, move, and I proposed the Question, that the debate on that Bill be adjourned. For that reason he has exhausted his rights.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. T. Fraser: I did not rise to speak on this Question, not because I had any desire to be discourteous to the House in the matter, but because I thought that the House would have been willing to allow the Third Reading without any speech by me. I had no desire to evade any responsibility; but I refrained from speaking merely because I assumed that this was one of those Bill to which the House quite regularly gives a Third Reading without any debate.
The hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) has called our attention to the fact that we have not in this House had a discussion on this Bill, but he will recall that we adopted the new procedure to enable Scottish Members to discuss the general principles of the Bill in the Scottish Grand Committee; and the discussions we had there, followed by the Second Reading in this Chamber,


really seem to me to have taken the place of the formal Second Reading debate which, in other circumstances, would have taken place in this House. No doubt, all Members of the House have read the Report of our proceedings.
This Bill is a very short one of three Clauses, the third one of which merely sets out the Title of the Bill. It is therefore, a Bill of only two Clauses in substance. The first enables the Secretary of State, after holding a proper inquiry, to make orders extending or amending the list of noxious or offensive gases mentioned in the 1906 Act, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It also applies to extending or amending the list of works mentioned in the First Schedule to the 1906 Act. As the hon. Gentleman has already explained, that Act was amended in 1926 for England and Wales and we are only now bringing Scotland into line with England and Wales.
Clause 2 gives the Secretary of State power to send inspectors into works that are not listed in the Schedule, but where he has reason to believe that there is emitted therefrom such gases as ought to be controlled by him under the powers given in this Act. We had a friendly and harmonious discussion on the general principle, and we made one or two small Amendments during the Committee stage. I therefore think that the House will not find it difficult to give the Bill its Third Reading.

4.51 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: It is not a bad thing that we should have had even this little formal prototype debate. It would be a pity if, under the new procedure for Scottish Bills, the 'House were to get into the way of thinking that because we have that new procedure every Third Reading should be taken formally. It would be a great pity if that view should find any support. There may well be occasions upon which we can agree without much discussion, but if we are to safeguard Scottish interests many Bills may demand a full Third Reading debate in this House, and what we have done today, even in a short and truncated way, is worth while.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. Charles Williams: I detain the House for only two or three minutes, to point out that this is a matter

about which, in the last Parliament, I was chasing the Lord President of the Council, who showed extreme reluctance to deal with this question which I knew was gravely affecting the health of the district. For that reason, I am glad that the Scottish Office are now doing something which is obviously of value to both agriculture and the general health of the district. What is much more important to my mind is that this Bill introduces rules which compel certain companies to follow good practices in looking after the health of those in their works—practices which have existed before in Norway and Canada, and in England.
This Bill has been conducted from the purely Scottish angle in exactly the right way. I am glad, as an English Member, that on this occasion we can support something which many of us would like to have seen done a long while ago, and which might have been done if the Lord President of the Council, the Secretary of State for Scotland and especially their Law Officers, had been more efficient in the last six years.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

OVERSEAS RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to transfer to the Secretary of State responsibility for the Overseas Food Corporation; to amend the law regulating the functions, constitution and finances of that Corporation; to transfer to the Minister of Food certain rights of that Corporation in relation to the Queensland-British Food Corporation; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorize—

(a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any sums payable out of such moneys under the said Act of the present Session in respect of expenses of the Overseas Food Corporation or in respect of advances by the Minister of Food to the Queensland-British Food Corporation;
(b) the payment into the Exchequer of any sums directed by the said Act of the present Session to he so paid on account of revenues of the Overseas Food Corporation or of sums received in respect of advances made or to be made to the Queensland-British Food Corporation;


(c) the remission of any obligation of the Overseas Food Corporation to make payments under section thirteen of the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, in respect of sums advanced to that Corporation under that Act;
(d) the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of sums paid into the Exchequer under section eighteen of the said Act of 1948 in pursuance of the said Act of the present Session in respect of advances made or to he made to the Queensland-British Food Corporation, and the application of so much thereof as represents principal in redemption or repayment of debt and so much thereof as represents interest in payment of interest otherwise falling to be paid out of the permanent annual charge for the National Debt.

OVERSEAS RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(TRANSFER TO SECRETARY OF STATE OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR OVERSEAS FOOD CORPORATION.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

4.54 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: I was wondering which of the Ministers—and after the last interlude I am happy to see that there are no fewer than four concerned with this Bill in front of me—was going to commend this Clause to the House, but it appears that none of them intends to do so. That is strange. It might have been that the Minister of Food would commend it with joy at getting rid of a nasty child, or it might have been that the Secretary of State for the Colonies would commend it with a word of welcome at the arrival of the child in his Department. But neither of them seems anxious to say anything at all, and I am rather surprised.
As it stands, of course, the Clause is not particularly difficult to understand, and we on this side of the Committee would certainly not think of opposing it, because it carries out what we, ever since the start of this business, have said was desirable and should be done, and that is to place ultimate responsibility for the Corporation on the Colonial Office. Later in Committee we will discuss the Cor-

poration in more detail, but for the purpose of argument on this Clause, assuming there is a Corporation of this nature, we have always taken the view that the overseeing Department should be the Colonial Office and not the Ministry of Food. This Clause does exactly that, and for that reason is to be welcomed on general grounds, though I must say that our pleasure and our satisfaction in this Matter have been rudely shaken within the last hour and a half in this House, when we discovered that a not such large scale or costly but a similar muddle and scandal has arisen in one of the organisations over which the Colonial Secretary does have some—

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. James Griffiths): What scandal?

Captain Crookshank: I heard the right hon. Gentleman make a statement at the end of Question Time about Gambia eggs.

Mr. Griffiths: I did not use the word scandal."

Captain Crookshank: No, but I did.

Mr. Griffiths: That is why I am asking: What scandal?

Captain Crookshank: We will discuss that when it is in order to do so on its own merits or demerits on a future occasion, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) gave notice. I am merely saying that this particular trouble, scandal, or whatever word is used about it—

Mr. Griffiths: It is clearly not in order for us to discuss the statement I made to the House earlier, and upon which I indicated there would be a further statement. There were a number of supplementary questions, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is now describing it as a scandal. I do not know what he means by the word "scandal." If there is to be a debate at some time I think he ought to withdraw that word, because it is prejudging the issue which will come before the House later.

Captain Crookshank: Not at all. There is nothing in the world to withdraw.

Mr. Griffiths: On a point of order. Is it in order for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, speaking on Clause I of this


Bill which has no relation to the question I discussed earlier, to make a remark of that kind?

The Chairman: I cannot say that there is anything unparliamentary about the use of that word in this connection. It may or may not apply; that is a matter for the Committee, who will be able to judge for themselves.

Mr. Griffiths: The matter which we discussed earlier, on a statement made by me to the House, does not come within the compass of this Bill. That is why I ask whether it is in order for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to refer to it.

The Chairman: I entirely agree that it is not competent for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to discuss or enter into any details of the matter to which he referred, but I do not think I can take any action to prevent him making a passing reference to it, or to any other activity of the proposed new Corporation.

Captain Crookshank: I specifically said that we intended to discuss this on another occasion and that I thought it was out of order to mention it in detail now. What I was saying was that, having found that one of the organisations for which the right hon. Gentleman has responsibility should have come into such misfortune as this about the eggs in Gambia, it a little shakes—not too much, but just a little, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree—the high hopes we had in previous debates of the transfer of this Corporation to his charge. But, of course, just as there are bad eggs and good eggs, I imagine the right hon. Gentleman will find that there are bad schemes and good schemes with which he has to deal.
5.0 p.m.
On general grounds we have always taken the view that it would be wise for this particular matter to come within the purview of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I should like one of the right hon. Gentlemen present to say something on this Clause. I want to take the opportunity of raising the question—I do not know how far it may be in order—whether, as a result of the transfer of the Corporation to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, it pre-supposes that there are to be closer relations with the Colonial Office than ever there have been before.

I imagine that one of the objects is that there should be closer relations with the supervising department than was reasonable within the Department of the Minister of Food.
I see that the right hon. Gentleman frowns. On these grounds, the Minister of Food had no direct concern with the well-being of Africa, but by transferring the Corporation to the Colonial Office it is implied, I think, that the African interest, so to speak, of the project becomes more important than before, and therefore there should be closer relationship in future between the Corporation and the Secretary of State than there used to be between the Corporation and the Minister of Food, who was dealing with this from a different angle.
Is the right hon. Gentleman going to accept more direct responsibility for the activities of the Corporation vis-á-vis this House, and will it be more easy for us to address questions to him on the whole of this matter? I think that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are interested in this problem of Questions being asked in the House of Commons. That is why I want to know on this Clause—and I hope that I am in order, because, if not, I can probably find some other occasion on which to raise it—whether, owing to the more close relations in future between the Colonial Office and the Corporation, the right hon. Gentleman will say that he is prepared to accept greater direct responsibility for the actions in the field of the new Corporation. If the right hon. Gentleman can say anything about that, and say something satisfactory, that would be very good for us all.
I hope, therefore, that in the long run this transfer—and I am assuming for the purpose of argument on this Clause that the Corporation will go on existing—will be shown to be to the benefit of all concerned. I am quite sure that it will be to the advantage of the Minister of Food because he has inevitably, like his predecessor but not quite so much as his predecessor—I should not like to put them in exactly the same category—had to devote an enormous amount of time to this problem which is quite obviously outside the direct line of his responsibilities. I know that originally the scheme was brought into being in the hope of increasing the food supplies of this country, but


once it had gone a bit astray—to put it mildly—the Minister of Food had to devote a disproportionate amount of time to this affair.
That is an extra reason why we should welcome this Clause and the transfer of the Corporation to the Colonial Office. I hope that we shall not find that its future career is as chequered as its immediate past. I hope that whatever the outcome of the issue about the Corporation itself, we shall find that the expenditure of this vast sum of public money will have done someone, somehow, some good in East Africa, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will tell us whether he is going to accept more responsibility in the future than the Minister of Food has been able to do in the past.

Sir Richard Acland: The right hon. and gallant Member for Gains-borough (Captain Crookshank) has raised a matter in which a number of us on this side of the Committee are interested. That is the non-party point of the right and power of back bench Members to ask questions of Ministers and to expect to receive replies. I suppose that in future whatever party is in Opposition, it will always want to have greater rights and impose on the Ministers greater burdens by asking questions, and that the Government will always want to reduce to the minimum the number of matters on which they have to answer questions.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he will let us know to what extent he thinks that questions can fairly be addressed to him now that the responsibility for this Corporation has been imposed upon him, and whether perhaps, at some later stage, consideration can be given to an Amendment to make it quite clear what are the areas of policy over which the Minister has power, and upon which, therefore, it would be proper for hon. Members to ask him questions. Apart from that matter, I hope that this Clause will go through.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) has pointed out that the provisions of Clause 1 really vindicate all the criticism which we have made during the many debates that have taken place on the original set-up. We always wanted the Colonial Office and not the Ministry of

Food to be the responsible authority. I can only hope that in many respects the Colonial Office will pay a good deal more attention, not merely to sound administration, but to what I might call African welfare than the Ministry of Food has hitherto done.
When the original scheme started to go wrong, hon. Members opposite took the view that it did not matter very much whether £36 million was or was not written off, because it was all, in some mysterious way, spent on colonial welfare. If this House had voted that sum of money to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for the purpose of colonial welfare, it would, I am sure, have been spent in an entirely different way.
Mr. Allan Wood, in his book which the present Secretary of State for War was understandably anxious to suppress, wrote:
Long years hence those who saw it may well wonder if it really happened that a timber mill was sited before anyone had counted the trees for the wood, that a pipe line costing half a million was built at huge operating expenses to take fuels to tanks miles from anyone in the African bush, that a railway was begun, without anyone knowing exactly where it was going to end.
That is not the way to spend money on colonial welfare.
One of the most disturbing features of the whole set-up was the lack of interest displayed in the conditions of many of the African employees. Many of us on this side of the Committee, and, I expect, many hon. Members opposite, have received disquieting information as to those conditions. African labour has been housed, four and five, in 180 1b. tents, many of the tents being thoroughly unserviceable.

The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman is going rather wide of the Clause.

Mr. Mott-Radelyffe: The Clause transfers the functions from the Minister of Food to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the only point that I was seeking to make was that I hoped the Colonial Office would pay a good deal more attention to the welfare of the African employees in the future, scheme than the Minister of Food paid in the past. By way of illustration, I was pointing out certain grave defects in the conditions under which many of the African employees were housed and fed under the


old system. I merely used as an illustration that African employees were living four and five in a 180 lb. tent, and that many of the tents were thoroughly unserviceable. In any case, I hope that under a different Department, which has had a good deal of experience of colonial development and of welfare services in the Colonies, such money as in fact is spent will be properly spent and not wasted on a number of badly thought out and worse executed schemes.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: As my hon. Friends have pointed out it has taken more than 3½ years for us to achieve this Clause, which we set out to do at the end of 1947. It will be a considerable satisfaction to us, but if there is to be this lag of 3½ years in our recommendations it will lead to a certain amount of disruption in various parts of the world. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for the Colonies is not here, because he disturbed the Committee with his objection to the use of the word "scandal." I would remind him that these proceedings are clearly the liquidation proceedings on a loss of £36½ million. This has been something worse than a scandalous matter. The accounts connected with the scheme would not have been allowed under the Companies Act in a private company. This is a most serious situation. These are the liquidation proceedings taking place on the Floor of this Chamber and it is the first of what I am afraid may turn out to be a series of scandals.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. John Dugdale): The Secretary of State for the Colonies was at pains to point out that he did not want discussion to take place upon the alleged scandal of the Gambia egg scheme. He was not referring in any way to the accounts of this Corporation.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I see, but they are all scandals. If we use strong language in this Committee it is because we want to push the point home. I hope that Members on the Government Front Bench will not be too thin-skinned, because, as we have pointed out time and time again, this is a loss of £36½ million, which is not something to be lightly overlooked. We have tried in every way to get Parliamentary Questions

to the Minister. I am not blaming the Minister on this point. Only today, another Question was asked by an hon. Member behind the Minister and he managed to get one across, which I have failed to do for more than a year. We shall welcome anything that the Colonial Secretary can do to give us more information about what is going on in the various Corporations working overseas.
We cannot go in detail over the arguments which we have used in the past for putting this matter into the hands of the Colonial Office. When a dispassionate examination is made of the case I think it will be found that the failure of the scheme is partly due to the fact that local individuals and governors have always had, overshadowing their efforts to keep control, this high-pressure political selling that was going on from London. They have done their best to advise, but on more occasions than one, they have been overruled and their advice has not been taken. There is something to be said now for salvaging what is left of the scheme for the benefit of the local people. Taking one thing with another, I do not think that more good can he said to have been done than harm. There has been practical development of communications for 3½ years, but that has been impeded by giving priority to this scheme.
I hope that as time goes on the Colonial Office will look at some of the suggestions that have been put from this side. I would mention one. In his speech last week the Minister of Food said that no comparable experiment had been made anywhere else. I would refer him once again to the Sudan Plantations Syndicate, which is a very big and extremely successful experiment in large-scale farming. A lot of mechanisation is used, and more than one million acres are under irrigation. Everybody who has been to see this scheme says how good it is. The Minister of Food and the Secretary of State for the Colonies have been appealed to, to make use of the experience and the personnel from that scheme, but, so far as I can make out, not one individual has been got hold of, not from the production side of the scheme but in regard to the great problems of resettlement. and so on. I hope that as time goes on the Secretary of State will look at the Sudan


scheme in order to get practical experience of what may be salvaged from the East African scheme.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Frederic Harris: For the two years that I have been in this House, whenever the Groundnut Scheme has been debated I have always strongly advocated that the Colonial Office should take over the scheme. I have done so for many reasons, but for one in particular. It was that the former Minister of Food just did not have a clue when he was answering our questions about the scheme. It always struck me as extraordinary when I saw the former Minister of Food in East Africa, pretending to follow up a scheme such as this when he could not know anything about it at all. It appeals to me very much that the Colonial Office should take over the workings of this scheme. I can only hope that the Colonial Office will now be able to give us practical and proper answers to questions which we may want to put. In previous debates, the proceedings have been brought down to the level of a farce because of the kind of information that was given in reply to our practical questions.
I feel very strongly indeed about this. In the past the position has been most unsatisfactory, and I would stress, now that this scheme is to be passed over to the Colonial Office, that we ought to get some understanding from the Colonial point of view, about what is happening with the scheme. I join, with other hon. Members in saying how important it is to get proper answers to our Questions, and I sincerely hope that we shall now get from the Colonial Office some sensible replies. I am not blaming the present Minister of Food for what has happened. Indeed, I congratulate him very much upon getting rid of this scheme, so far as he is concerned. He has got a lucky break. If I were in his shoes—one never knows, one day I may be—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—I should be very pleased to have got rid of a problem such as the one we are now discussing.
I do not know whether the touchiness displayed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies this afternoon indicates the kind of replies that we may get to our Questions on this matter. I for one shall feel very strongly about it if that is the case, and I want to make my protest very strongly. I am fed up to the back teeth

with the replies that we have had in the past from the former Minister of Food about a scheme of which he knew nothing whatever. I hope that we shall get real replies to our Questions, which are important because we want to know where we stand. Public money is involved and we want to know what is happening to it. I hope that the exhibition of touchiness that we have seen this afternoon from the Colonial Secretary is not a guide to the type of answer we shall get when we want to get down to the details of this scheme.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Before the Minister replies I want information upon another matter. The scheme is now being taken over by the Colonial Secretary and it will become part of Colonial development. It is situated in Tanganyika. It is essential that this Committee should know what the Tanganyika Government are doing and thinking about it and what consultations have taken place. We believe that the Board is to be moved to Tanganyika and that the Tanganyika Government are to be represented on the Board. It is obvious that there is to be much more co-operation from the Tanganyika Government, because it is clear that the Secretary of State for the Colonies has been discussing the matter with them, but he did not tell us the result of those talks. On Second Reading he said:
While we have been considering these new proposals, I have been keeping in the closest touch with the Government of Tanganyika and I have had discussions with them in this country.
All that we gathered about those discussions was stated in the next sentence. I want to draw the Minister's attention to it. Having discussed it with the Government of Tanganyika, he said:
I know that if tonight the decision of this House was to abandon the Scheme or to set up an inquiry, that decision would be received with dismay among the people of Tanganyika." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1951: Vol. 484, c. 1201–2.]
That was received in the House with cries of "Nonsense."
I draw attention to this because there was great doubt in my mind about the accuracy on the Secretary of State's statement on that point. I cannot accept that the Government of Tanganyika told him that an inquiry would be regarded with despair, which was what he conveyed to


the House. I do not believe it. The right hon. Gentleman misdirected and misinformed the House. It is of the utmost importance that we should know the view of the Government of Tanganyika on the proposed extension in a limited way and what part they will play, not only in having a seat on the Board but in many other directions, such as in regard to the railway, health and housing. I hope that the Colonial Secretary will give us some information about this.

Mr. Gammans: This Clause is vitally important and we ought not to pass it unless we realise exactly all that it implies. What we are really doing is considering the new articles of association of a bankrupt company, a company which, if it were a private enterprise company, would be called a "bucket-shop" by hon. Gentlemen opposite—and rightly so. Before we can have full confidence in the new management and the new board of directors we must understand from them exactly how they will carry on their business and to what extent they are prepared to be accountable to this House.
Nothing was more remarkable in the debate last week than the levity with which the Government and their supporters were prepared to write off £36,500,000. Do they realise that sum of money would have built a new satellite town? We might call it "The Lost City of Stracheyville." Does the Minister of Food realise that that money would have housed all the homeless in the city of Bradford or the city of Leeds? Yet the Government just write this off. We cannot transfer the responsibility to the Colonial Office without knowing exactly how they will be accountable to this House.
It is a great pity that when bringing out this new company the Government did not have to float it on the Stock Exchange. Whatever may be said against the Stock Exchange, it is not a bad barometer of the worthiness of either a concern or the people who run it. Last week I heard hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent trade unions saying what a wonderful scheme this was. Why do they not put their trade union funds into the scheme without any Government guarantee? Why do they not ask the Co-op

Bank to put up the £6,500,000 without a Government guarantee? What utter nonsense it is to expect us to accept the declarations of hon. Gentlemen opposite that they will run this show better than they have run the show in the past. No, Sir, we cannot accept this unless we know exactly how the new show will be run.
I should like to tell the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Minister of Food that if they had accepted accountability to Parliament for this scandal—it is a scandal, whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say about it—we should not have had to listen to the terrible story which we have heard in the last two weeks. I am not prepared to pass the Clause in its present form unless we have a pretty shrewd idea from the right hon. Gentleman of how we shall in future hear of the progress of the scheme and to what extent the House of Commons will be in a position to ask Questions about it.

Mr. David Renton: I wish to add a short postscript to the admirable speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans). If he is right in stating that if this had been private enterprise it would have been the operation of a "bucket-shop," it follows that those who were responsible for it would have been up at the Old Bailey. On the other hand, we are being asked to legalise this process, and I have very great hesitation in doing so.

Mr. Rankin: Well do not do so!

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. John Dugdale): I am very glad that the Clause has been welcomed by a large number of hon. Members, if perhaps in rather dubious terms by some of them. I would like, first, to refer for a moment to the question raised by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) who talked about "the scandal" in connection with the Gambia eggs scheme. I fully realise that it is not in order to discuss the scheme now, but it is only right and proper to say that it is wrong to pre-judge any scheme simply on a large number of newspaper reports.
There have been newspaper reports, but to call the scheme a scandal just because it may not have achieved quite as much success as was hoped for it, is


wrong. [Laughter.] Yes, indeed; many private companies have set out with great hopes, but have not achieved the success expected of them. To call the scheme a scandal because of that and to pre-judge it is wrong. I shall not refer to it any more because, strictly speaking, I believe I am out of order, as was the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in referring to it. I am glad that hon. Members as a whole welcome the Clause. The only reason why I or my right hon. Friend did not make a welcoming speech was that we made it quite clear on Second Reading that we welcomed the Bill, including, of course, this Clause.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough was concerned about responsibility. Far be it from me to say that the Minister of Food has not discharged his responsibilities to Parliament or that they would be better discharged by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I want to read the relevant phrase in Command Paper 8125 on the future of the Overseas Food Corporation:
Their operations will, therefore, be financed from the time of transference of Ministerial responsibility from moneys to be voted by Parliament subject to effective control by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in consultation with the Treasury.
That will give Parliament the control that it desires. There will be a vote which will be subject to discussion by Parliament and there will be general Parliamentary control.
But it would be wrong for Parliament to have day-to-day control over the detailed business affairs of the Corporation, and these affairs will be entrusted, as, indeed, have the affairs of the Colonial Development Corporation, to men of high standing in the business world, men recognised not only on this side of the House but also on the other side as men of standing and with a knowledge of business. We shall, naturally, leave the regular day-to-day conduct of the business in their hands, but Parliament will, obviously, have responsibility and there will be accountability to Parliament in the way I have described.

Captain Crookshank: What is the value of the words "subject to effective control by the Secretary of State"? Is there any meaning in that?

Mr. Dugdale: I am sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not like it to be "ineffective control by the

Secretary of State." It appears to be desirable that the control should be effective.

Captain Crookshank: What is the control?

Mr. Dugdale: The control is that the money will be voted by Parliament and that the Secretary of State will have general supervision, as he does over the Colonial Development Corporation. He will not interfere with the day-to-day management of the Corporation, because it is managed by men who have been chosen for their training in business management and for their knowledge of business affairs. It would not be right or proper for him to interfere in detail, but he will exercise the same general control as is exercised over the Colonial Development Corporation.
5.30 p.m.
The hon. Members for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) and Fife, East (Mr. Stewart), doubted whether any practical good had been done by the scheme. I think the hon. Member for Fife, East, raised doubts whether the Government of Tanganyika cared whether the scheme was abolished or continued.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: No. I am prepared to accept that the Government of Tanganyika would be sorry if the scheme were stopped. But I do not believe that the Government of Tanganyika would have regarded it with dismay if our proposal for an independent inquiry had been accepted.

Mr. Dugdale: That is quite a different question. It is important to make it clear, in spite of the losses which no one on this side is belittling—losses which we have said are both big and grave losses—that there are some intangible assets, such as the training which has been given to large numbers of Africans which they would not otherwise have had. I have seen some of them doing work which they would never have learnt to do had it not been for the scheme. In addition, large areas of land have been cleared which, even if they are used for ranches, are, at any rate, of some value to that part of Tanganyika. There are various assets, such as these intangible assets, that cannot be disregarded and make the scheme of the greatest importance to Tanganyika.

Mr. Gammans: When the Secretary of State talks about "effective" Parliamentary control, does he mean that we shall be in any better position to ask Parliamentary Questions about this scheme than we have been in the past, or will the position be exactly the same?

Mr. Dugdale: I think that this is largely a matter for the Chair. I cannot say what Questions can and cannot be asked, but there will be general supervision by the Secretary of State. There will be Votes, which can be discussed. I have no doubt that some Questions will be allowed and some disallowed, but far be it from me to say which. The Secretary of State will be anxious to give as much information as is reasonable to expect.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Will it be any easier to ask Questions than it is in the case of the Colonial Development Corporation, because virtually no Questions can be asked about that Corporation.

Mr. Dugdale: I do not think I can say that it will be any easier or more difficult. It is largely a question for the Chair to decide. It is entirely for the Chair to decide which Questions will be accepted.

The Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): I understand that it has nothing to do with the Chair.

Mr. Gammans: Surely the position depends on the way in which the Government put down the estimates. If the Secretary of State is prepared to give detailed Estimates on this scheme it will be in order to ask Questions, but if we are to be asked to vote global sums and then write them off, we shall not be able to ask any more Questions than before.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: How can it be claimed that Parliamentary control had been effective in the past when it has resulted in the writing off of £36 million?

Mr. Dugdale: Whether that was due to the success or otherwise of Parliamentary supervision is another point. I do not know whether the hon. Member is suggesting that the supervision exercised by Members opposite has not been as good as it might have been—I can hardly believe that he is suggesting that. This Corporation will be subject to exactly the same amount of control as in the case of the other matters coming under the

Colonial Office Vote, and in exactly the same manner as in the case of other corporations, such as the Colonial Development Corporation, for which the Government have responsibility.

The Deputy-Chairman: Before we proceed any further, perhaps I might make the position of the Chair clear on the matter. The limit is laid down by Ministers, who say how far it is their responsibility and how far the responsibility is left to the corporation.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It would perhaps be of most value to the Committee, in the light of your statement, Sir Charles, which certainly clarifies the situation, if I ask the Minister now, without giving up my right to make any comments later, whether we shall, in fact, get more information now that this scheme is being transferred to the Colonial Office; whether the limits on questioning will be extended now that it is passing into the hands of the Colonial Secretary?

Mr. Dugdale: I think that that is a hypothetical question. Our aim will be to give the fullest possible information. We will try to give the information because we think it is desirable that the House should know as much as possible about the working of the Corporation. We will try to give the utmost information possible. As to which Questions can or cannot be answered, that is a hypothetical question; it depends on the Question:, that are asked. But we shall try to give as much information as we can.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the rather serious point I raised regarding the attitude and future action of the Government of Tanganyika?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Minister's answer is wholly unsatisfactory. The Committee is not in the slightest degree further forward in its search for an agreed formula. I know this matter is causing disturbance in the minds of Members on both sides of the Committee. We have had conversations with our friends on this side and personal talks with Members opposite who share our view. I am sure that it is common to both sides of the Committee. I am sure that it would commend itself to the Committee as a whole if a solution could be found. This appears to us to be a good opportunity for trying to arrive at an agreed solution.
The transfer of this scheme from one Department to another may well give an opportunity for looking once more into ministerial accountability, and, in particular, the right to ask Questions. If we get no more satisfaction today, we shall have to consider whether we cannot bring forward an Amendment on Report, or whether something cannot be introduced into the Bill in another place, which will meet what I believe is the common desire on both sides.
In regard to the general question of Clause 1 and the transference of this enterprise from the Ministry of Food to the Colonial Office, I think it is a very good thing that the case for this transfer did not entirely depend on the arguments put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. Had this been the first explanation to the country of the need for the change after the disastrous record over the last three years, I do not think anyone would have been convinced that it would be a good thing to transfer it to the Secretary of State. Mercifully, the arguments are well known both in the Committee and in the country, and we have made it quite plain for three and a half years that, psychologically and administratively, the case for transference to the Colonial Office is overwhelming. We shall give general support to this proposal and to Clause 1.
I think it would have been altogether appropriate if the right hon. Gentleman, in his remarks, had paid some tribute to the fact that the Opposition for the last three and a half years had urged that this should happen. If, in fact; the Government wanted this new scheme to be ushered in in an atmosphere of good will, it might have been politic to have conceded that the Opposition had always urged that this step should be taken. Had we had a free vote on any of the many occasions when this matter was discussed, we should certainly have carried the day for we had a good deal of support on the Socialist benches.
We urged this course even before the Overseas Food Corporation was formed, and when it was first announced that it was to be formed we opposed the Ministry of Food being in charge. When the first Colonial Development Bill was before the House we voiced our opposition, and we moved an Amendment on the Committee stage excluding the colonial territories from the Overseas Food Corporation.

Undeterred by defeat and reinforced by arguments from the Socialist benches, including speeches by the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) and the hon. Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan), we went forward on the Report stage to move another Amendment, which would have enabled the Government to transfer this scheme from the Ministry of Food to the Colonial Office by Order in Council, so determined were we on the proper course and so anxious that the Government should take it.
Believing in the rightness of our view, we were reinforced in our opinion by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill a few days ago. On that occasion he chided the Opposition with having said what seems to be indisputable, that the groundnuts scheme was dead. He used words to the effect that we did not appear to realise what the failure of this scheme might mean to the Colonial Empire. It was precisely because we knew what the failure would mean to the Colonial Empire and what the success could have meant to that Empire, that we urged that the scheme should be under the Colonial Office.
Everything that the Secretary of State then said wholly justified our view; indeed, he could not have used more serious words about any other scheme under his own Ministerial responsibility. Yet it is only now that the scheme is being transferred to his responsibility. As the Committee will remember, the Annual Report on the Colonial Empire for the last two years contained altogether only 27 lines of print about this scheme, the failure of which as the right hon. Gentleman said, might have most harmful consequences for the Colonial Empire.
At last, and not for the first time, the Government have listened to the arguments of the Opposition and we have got what we asked for. But what are the arguments that are used to justify the changes? Surely there were never more foolish arguments put forward in this Committee for such a step. In the Second Reading debate, the Minister of Food said that the scheme would be an undertaking which must be integrated in our general plans for the development of the Colonial Empire. If it were not, it was scandalous that the largest scheme in the Colonial Empire should not have


been integrated into the general development of our Colonies.
The Minister of Food said it would be quite improper for his Department to run this scheme. Why should it suddenly be improper? What has happened to the scheme inside a few days? The right hon. Gentleman said that the scheme, instead of being a groundnuts scheme, had now become a groundnuts scheme and a cattle scheme. Why is it proper for the Minister of Food to run a groundnuts scheme but quite improper to run a groundnuts scheme and a cattle scheme? Are not cattle food, or is it to convey the idea that meat is not food, so the cut in the meat ration does not matter? Surely there never have been more absurd arguments advanced in this Committee. The truth is that there was always an overwhelming case for its transfer to the Colonial Office. Indeed, it ought never to have been under any other Department, but the Secretary of State for War, when Minister of Food, consistently refused to allow the transfer.
5.45 p.m.
There are far stronger arguments than the Minister stated. These arguments we have deployed in the House for the last three and a half years and they tell of the disastrous consequences of another Government Department being engaged in competitive undertakings in the British Colonial Empire. We are delighted that that is no longer going to be possible. We hoped that the Minister of State would have given some explanation as to how the situation would improve. What difference will it make to running the scheme; what difference is it going to make to the lives of the Africans; and what difference is it going to make to Parliamentary responsibility and ministerial accountability? We have had no worthwhile information, nor have we been told what the relations are going to be between the Colonial Development Corporation and the Overseas Food Corporation, now that the scheem is being transferred to the right hon. Gentleman's Department. It may well be that the Colonial Development Corporation will have a slightly lesser responsibility to the Colonial Office, and the Overseas Food Corporation will now have an advantage in the future. If that is so it will be very serious for a number of schemes, in

Which the Colonial Development Corporation are engaged.
Surely, when a Clause of this kind is commended to the Committee, the Minister of State should have spent a moment or two dealing with important issues of that kind, but I suppose he expected this Clause to go through without any discussion, because he knows that it represents much of what the Opposition asked for in the last three and a half years. What the Opposition have asked for, for over three years, must be right, as the Committee now know and the country now realises.

Mr. Rankin: When the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), wound up for the Opposition last week, he gently chided me on the ground that I had opposed the idea of placing this scheme under the Ministry of Food and had advocated from a very early stage that it should be under the care of the Colonial Office. He said that I did not carry my criticism to what he regards as the logical conclusion, of going into the Division Lobby against the Government. I do not regard that as being the logical conclusion because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have less extreme ways of bringing our point of view to bear upon our right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, and these have not been disregarded.
The views which I expressed were not exclusive to myself, because I do not think it is disclosing any secret to say that there were many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan) who had similar views. Those views have now prevailed, with the assistance of hon. Members on the other side of the Committee, and we should congratulate the Government on coming round to our way of thinking.
From time to time in our various debates on the work of the Corporation, I have said that there was one individual who did not receive sufficient attention, at least so far as our debates were concerned. We thought of these schemes much in the light of what they were going to mean to us in this country, and that of course was a right attitude so far as we are concerned; but I have asked on many occasions what these schemes will mean to the African. This is very important indeed. On one occa-


sion I contrasted the position in West Africa with the position in East Africa. By carrying out in West Africa the policy which we have followed at home for our own farmers, we got almost as many groundnuts as we needed. I felt that had we regarded the East African less as a labourer in a mechanical project and more as a farmer, greater success might have attended our efforts.
That leads me to the point which I wish to put to my right hon. Friend. Smaller units are now to be created in East Africa. These units, I understand from the White Paper, are to be managed by individuals selected by the Corporation.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is going beyond the scope of the Clause and is now discussing administrative details.

Mr. Rankin: I am sorry, Sir Charles. I am under a slight difficulty and was hoping that you might look upon me with a kindly eye, as I did not manage to get in on Second Reading.

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid that that is no reason why the hon. Member should make his Second Reading speech now.

Mr. Rankin: I recognise your kindly hand, Sir Charles, and perhaps at a later stage I may be able to point out that we want to emphasise the position which the African ought to have in the operation of these schemes. That will, I think, command general agreement on all sides.
I should like my right hon. Friend to give a little more guidance on the matter of Questions. This afternoon in the House, as hon. Members know, I had the experience of discovering that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was perfectly prepared to support the policy about which I was raising a Question. I had handed to the Table a Question in a particular form, in which I gave the details with which my right hon. Friend said that I should supply him on a further Question. My first Question, however, was ruled out of order by the Table, and of course—

The Deputy-Chairman: I cannot allow the hon. Member to criticise the Table. I will give again the Ruling, which is perfectly clear, about how far Questions

can go: the limitation is laid down by Ministers, who say how far it is their responsibility and how far the responsibility of the Corporation. I cannot allow the subject to be discussed further.

Mr. Rankin: I am not seeking in any way to criticise the Table; I was merely relating the factual situation. My right hon. Friend seemed to indicate by his reply to my supplementary question that he accepted the content of the Question which had been previously rejected. It places us, in all parts of the House, in a very difficult situation when we find that the Minister is prepared to accept a Question which the proper authorities in the House evidently regard as a Question that is not within the province of the Minister.

The Deputy-Chairman: I have said that I cannot allow this matter to be discussed. I have made it perfectly clear that the responsibility is with the Minister. I cannot allow this matter to be discussed any further.

Mr. Rankin: I am very sorry to find myself in conflict with the Chair, but I am not seeking to discuss the rights or wrongs of the matter. What I am seeking is a more accurate indication from the Minister of the type of Question which it would be permissible to get past the Table. My position is that I always say to the Table, "Will you frame the Question so that I can get it past you?" I am given great help in that way. It would be of assistance if the Minister would give a closer definition of this problem which faces all of us when we seek to put down Questions.

Mr. Dugdale: Perhaps I may intervene for a moment on the matter of Questions and of responsibility generally. I have already tried to make it clear that this matter will be subject to an annual Vote in Parliament. The Secretary of State would therefore be answerable to the House, and any Questions concerning the Corporation could naturally be raised in that connection. If hon. Members think it desirable, we will go into the matter before the Report stage to see whether it is possible in any way for the scope of Questions or of discussion to be widened. I cannot at present say more than that. We will go into the matter and see what can be done, and I hope


that the Committee will accept this assurance. We are anxious to answer all the Questions, as we wish the House to have all the information which it can get.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: There is one point on which I should like to have an assurance from the Minister. So far as I can see, in the original Act there is no compulsion on the Corporation to produce an annual report; they have, of course, to produce accounts, but not an annual report. It is purely fortuitous and owing to the failure of the Corporation, and because of the calamities which have beset them, that we have had reports on several occasions. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the situation will be the same as before, and we on this side, at any rate, would at least expect that it would be no worse than before in the matter of Ministerial accountability to the House. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that on page 11 of the White Paper, the Report of the Overseas Food Corporation says that:
Annual reports and budgets, prepared after a detailed appraisal of the progress of the Scheme from year to year, would of course be submitted.
That is to say, they would be submitted if the Corporation were allowed to carry on. It does not, however, follow that the Ministry would necessarily publish those reports and lay them before the House. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this point and, if necessary, to introduce words into the Bill at a later stage to make it quite clear that a report must be laid before the House as has been done annually so far.

Mr. Dugdale: May I intervene to make it clear that just as it has been done in the past, so it will be done in the future, and an annual report will be made public and submitted to Parliament?

Mr. Alport: I can fully understand the somewhat diffident tones in which the Minister of State commented on this part of the debate. After all, the Secretary of State and the Colonial Office are taking over what one of the colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman once referred to in a different context as a "pretty poor bag of assets." I feel that we can take courage that those who handled this

affair before it came under the control of his Department, in spite of their failure, have not been treated with the inhumanity which was meted out to similar failures in years gone by. After all, this is probably the biggest failure in public enterprise since the South Sea Company. On that occasion the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expelled from the House, one of the principal Ministers connected with it committed suicide, and the directors were forced to produce for the benefit of the shareholders as much money as could be raised from their private estates.
6.0 p.m.
But in these more humane times, even though this new scheme should fail under the Colonial Office, the right hon. Gentleman can expect, no doubt, the same treatment as has been meted out to his predecessors whereby, in contradistinction to the treatment of the eighteenth century, the Minister concerned has been elevated in office instead of being expelled from the House; none of his principal colleagues seem to show any signs of committing felo de se, and somebody who was mainly concerned with it, like Sir Leslie Plummer, receives a reward for his efforts instead of being made to part with his estates as in the case of the directors of that Company.
What seems to me so strange is that the Minister of State has allowed his diffidence to prevent him from giving us any indication in supplementation of the statement made in the Second Reading debate by the Secretary of State as to how the Colonial Office intend to approach their new responsibilities. Will they tackle this new problem in the light of a commercial undertaking run on the lines of a good employer, but with the object of making it a commercial success, or are they going to regard it merely as a new offshoot of the programme of colonial development?
No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will realise that a decision as between those two types of policy will lead to very different types of administration of the scheme for the future. While I fully agree with the principle that the Colonial Office is far better equipped to deal with a colonial development project, I do not agree that the Colonial Office is equipped to deal with, and make a success of, a commercial project. What I should like


to know, if it is possible, is which of those two lines of policy the Secretary of State intends to follow.
I can quite see that if it is decided to run this new Scheme on a normal commercial basis, there is likely to be grave conflict between the possibility of making that Scheme a success and following the main lines of colonial policy as introduced by the Government during these last six years. For instance, the right hon. Gentleman may be informed by his commercial advisers that the only way in which to make the railway in the Southern Province pay—and indeed possibly to make the rump of the Kongwa experiment pay—would be to extend white settlement in those areas. In that case, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to accept the advice of those who speak to him, not on the lines of political policy, but on the lines of commercial policy? And if he would not do so, would he then come to this House and say once again that this Scheme has not proved a success and he has therefore to ask us either for some more money or, alternatively, to agree to its final winding up?
This is not the first time we have had experience of great public projects of this sort introduced for one specific purpose which, after a period of time, have had to change their objectives entirely. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of a fact with which I am sure the is familiar, that the reason why the present Kenya—Uganda railway was built was not economic but purely humanitarian, in fulfilment of our obligations under the Brussels Treaty in order to put an end to the slave trade. But it became quite clear within a short time that unless it was possible to make that railway pay, the burden on the British taxpayer, and more particularly on the Protectorates themselves, was far too heavy to be borne. Therefore, some means had to be found of ensuring that the railway became a commercial proposition. The right hon. Gentleman will also remember that the reason the white settlers were encouraged to go to the highlands of Kenya in the early days was to ensure that that railway should become a commercial proposition as quickly as possible—and it did so within 10 years.
If I understand the policy of the Colonial Office at the present time, they

would be unalterably opposed to any such development and, therefore, would immediately find themselves in conflict between the commercial economic lines of policy on the one hand and the political—I shall not argue the merits of it—social lines of policy on the other. I do not think that the Secretary of State has the right to come to this Committee and accept the responsibility which this Clause gives to him without having given some indication to hon. Gentlemen on both sides of how he would tackle this conflict of policies which, in my view, is likely to appear and without having given a somewhat broader statement of the way in which he proposes to carry out an experiment in which, the White Paper acknowledges, he is able to envisage only the next stage, and is unable to see any of the stages which those of us who are interested in colonial development hope will run far beyond that, into the horizon of the future.

Mr. Edgar Granville: Nobody imagines that the Secretary of State for the Colonies will have an easy job if he is to carry out even the modest terms of this new Bill. Nevertheless, if there is one Clause which all hon. Members of the Committee will accept, it is this Clause which will transfer the responsibility for the Overseas Food Corporation from the Ministry of Food to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is anxious to try to keep the House of Commons in touch with the progress and development of this new and modified scheme. I understand from the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) that annual reports from the Overseas Food Corporation will be presented to the House for consideration. when we shall have a debate, and when the right hon. Gentleman will undoubtedly give us the latest information in his possession but it is rather a long time to wait until the end of a whole operational year before the right hon. Gentleman can tell the House how these changes are working out and whether they are effective or otherwise.
I quite appreciate the difficulties with regard to Question and answer in the House to which you, Sir Charles, have referred. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman could find some way of keeping the House of Commons—all parties,


all sides of the House—in touch with the progress of this new scheme. One year is a little too long to wait and I should like the right hon. Gentleman seriously to consider whether an interim report could be made by the Department.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I hope I can help the Committee. One of the big changes that we are making in the future working of the Corporation is that the Secretary of State is to be made responsible for the presentation of Estimates for the Corporation in the House of Commons each year. Those Estimates can be tabled and discussed and the Secretary of State can be asked Questions about them. The House, if it so wishes, can refuse to give the Votes. Each year that will take place and, in addition, there will be the annual report.
There is the question of what Questions are or are not admissible week by week on the Scheme under these new conditions. I am not an expert, but I imagine that to some extent, if not to a large extent, that will be governed by the fact that this Scheme is serviced by annual Votes, and that this will have an effect on what Questions will or will not be admissible. That is a matter which my right hon. Friend has promised to look into between now and the Report stage. It is our desire that the House shall be kept regularly informed of the Scheme by Question and answer. I think all we can say at the moment is that we will look at the matter again and make a statement on the Report stage. Obviously the matter will be governed by the fact that the new Scheme will be serviced by an annual Vote.

Mr. Granville: In the case of civil aviation although there is a report of the Overseas Airways Corporation which is given annually, we have many debates on policy and Ministers are always available to give the latest information. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this procedure is liquidating an enormous Scheme and authorising the further expenditure of £7,500,000, and it is a long time to have to wait for the annual report.

Mr. Griffiths: This Bill does not authorise the expenditure of £7,500,000 in one lump sum. The figure of £6 million is an estimate. The House will

authorise only the Estimates which the Secretary of State puts before it each year, and therefore there will be no cheque, blank or otherwise, of £x million. The House will have the Estimates before it. They can be accepted or rejected and in the succeeding 12 months the House will authorise Estimates that are put forward. Supplementary Estimates will have to come before the House in the same way. I ask the hon. Member to realise that in this Bill we are not making provision by which the House will be asked to vote £x million to the Corporation.

Dr. Morgan: rose—

The Deputy-Chairman: Surely we can come to a decision on the matter?

Dr. Morgan: I am always having to wait.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2.—(FUNCTIONS AND CONSTITUTION OF OVERSEAS FOOD CORPORATION.)

Captain Crookshank: The Amendment standing in my name and the name of my hon. Friends, in page 2, line 17, after "shall" to insert
subject to the provisions of this section.
leads up to subsequent Amendments and I should like to have your guidance, Sir Charles. I take it that if this Amendment were, negatived, it would still be competent to discuss the other Amendments, in line 38, at the end, to add:
(5) If it appears to the Secretary of State to be in the general interest that all or any of the functions of the Overseas Food Corporation should be discharged by any other person, undertaking or authority, and that such person, undertaking or authority is ready and willing to discharge such functions, the Secretary of State may make regulations for the transfer of such functions and for the transfer (whether by sale or otherwise) of the assets, property, rights and liabilities of the Overseas Food Corporation or part thereof to such person, undertaking or authority and in such manner and to such extent as may be prescribed.
and, in line 38, at the end, to add:
(5) After the transfer or other disposal of all the assets, property, rights and liabilities of the Overseas Food Corporation in accordance with the provision of this section the Corporation shall on a date to be prescribed by the Secretary of State, cease to exist.
There are various different provisions that we would seek to have inserted, and I should like to know what the situation is.

The Deputy-Chairman: I was under the impression that this Amendment would be considered with the proposed Amendments to line 38 and, after discussion of this Amendment, the others would either fall, if this Amendment were negatived, or would be taken as consequential Amendments.

Captain Crookshank: It is quite true that without this Amendment there are no limits set in the Bill. We want to put in certain limits and from the fact that the provisions have been drafted as two subsections they are put down separately. We thought it would be more convenient to the Committee if we discussed specifically the Amendment dealing with the possibility of changing the functions of the Corporation and the other Amendment dealing with the rights and assets. This Amendment we thought necessary in order to lead up to the other Amendments. I am in your hands; it may be that it is not necessary to put in these words.

The Deputy-Chairman: Perhaps it would be better if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not move this Amendment now. Then, if the other Amendments are accepted, probably it could be put right on Report stage.

6.15 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: That would suit me admirably. We only put down this Amendment out of fear that the other Amendments might be ruled out of order, if these words were not here. But in view of what you have said—that you are prepared to call the other Amendments separately—I see no point in discussing these words at all. They were only a little signal that we want to be in order.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As I understand this Amendment, the words,
subject to the provisions of this section.
are sought to be inserted to refer to the proposed Amendments to line 38. If, therefore, those Amendments are not accepted, but are defeated, there will be no purpose in inserting these words—

Captain Crookshank: None at all.

Mr. Griffiths: I think, therefore, if it is your Ruling now, Sir Charles, that we take the other Amendments, which are the provisions which this Amendment

would seek to put in, that does not in any way bind any of us on this first Amendment.

The Deputy-Chairman: I was not making a Ruling; I was making a suggestion for the convenience of the Committee. It seems to me that if we let this go now, what will be necessary if the other two Amendments are accepted will be to put in a similar Amendment to the proposed Amendment to line 17 on Report stage.

Mr. Griffiths: The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) ought, then, to withdraw this Amendment and, if any of the other provisions are accepted, the adjustment could be made on Report stage.

The Deputy-Chairman: This Amendment has not been moved yet.

Captain Crookshank: No, I was asking for guidance. On the assurance that the other Amendments are to be called, I will not move this Amendment because it would subsequently be a consequential Amendment to the other Amendments. If they were carried, we could have the main debate and we would be better able to concentrate on the matter.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I beg to move, in page 2, line 20, to leave out "and Central."
The Committee will remember that in section 3 (1, b) of the parent Act, the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, there are the words—I abbreviate them somewhat:
as the first project to be carried out by them,
the Corporations
securing the large-scale production of groundnuts…in colonial territories in East and Central Africa, and the marketing thereof.
In the present Bill, in Clause (2, 1), the phrase is left:
in colonial territories in East and Central Africa.
There does not appear to us to be any reason for leaving in the word "Central" and its inclusion may lead to misunderstanding, not only generally and in the territories concerned, but also, for example, in the Colonial Development Corporation, who may well have important duties in Central Africa. We are


led to this conclusion because in paragraph 40 of the Government's White Paper we read:
The Corporation do not contemplate embarking on any other schemes in East Africa or elsewhere.
Obviously we could not leave out the word "East" in "East and Central Africa" because we know that they intend to carry on a modified form of the existing Scheme in East Africa; but as they say expressly that they do not contemplate embarking on any other schemes in East Africa or elsewhere, there seems no reason to leave in the word "Central."

Mr. Rankin: I wish briefly to ask a question about the inclusion of the words "Central Africa." We have been largely concerned with the Tanganyika Scheme, and to my mind at least that is the only scheme envisaged. I take it that the reference to East Africa covers that, and that the inclusion of Central Africa envisages an extension to Nyasaland. I am not opposing the retention of the words "Central Africa," nor am I necessarily supporting the idea of excluding them, but I want further information because I understand that the Government of Tanganyika will be represented on the Corporation. If under this Clause Nyasaland is to come into the Scheme—if Central Africa is to be concerned in it—I take it that that will include Nyasaland—or perhaps Northern Rhodesia—what is the argument against having a representative of the Nyasaland Government on the Corporation if there is to be a representative of the Tanganyika Government?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: As I have previously told the Committee, I have interests in Central Africa. There is a great deal of work to be done there, particularly in developing communications. In view of the history of this Corporation, I do not regard it as at all a good thing to have them taking further action in Central Africa. There is already the Colonial Development Corporation, which has schemes in Rhodesia as well as in Nyasaland. It is taking certain action in regard to a matter raised by an hon. Member's Question today, a matter which I have been trying to raise for a year—monopoly practices to prevent co-operatives from developing their work there.
I consider that there is already sufficient activity there on the part of the Colonial Development Corporation and the Colonial Development Welfare Fund, and in view of the point contained in paragraph 40 of the White Paper, which says that the Overseas Food Corporation are not to extend further their activities, to which my hon. Friend has referred, it would seem that any confusion there might be would be completely removed if the words "and Central" were left out of the Bill.

Mr. Alport: This seems to be another indication of the lack of clarity of the new sponsors of the Overseas Food Corporation about the future activities of that Corporation. There is something to be said for an eventual linking up of communications between the Southern Province of Tanganyika and Nyasaland and possibly Northern Rhodesia. But I feel that the Committee should know whether such a venture is in the minds of those who are sponsoring this Bill, and whether the Bill was drafted with that object in view.
We are told that this is a limited Bill, that the horizon of what is envisaged extends to seven years, that the activities of the Corporation are to take place only in Tanganyika. Yet there is this curious addition of "Central Africa," which draws within the Bill's scope three enormous and important territories the characteristics of which are very different from those of Tanganyika. I hope that when the Minister replies he will set our minds at rest as to which way this particular provision of the Bill should be interpreted. Whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees or not that the words "and Central" should be left out, will he also state whether they were included for any particular reason?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I say at once that they are not included for any sinister reason, as seemed to be suggested by the hon. Member. In this Bill we have to define the area in which the new Corporation shall operate, because in the Act which we are amending the Overseas Food Corporation was permitted to operate anywhere outside the United Kingdom. In this Bill we are limiting it to East and Central Africa. As has already been made clear in the White Paper to which the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire


(Mr. Lennox-Boyd) has referred, the only scheme at present in contemplation or thought of is that embodied in the White Paper—the Scheme in Tanganyika.
We shall know as we go along from year to year if the new Scheme is a success, and if at the end of the seven years, which I think everyone agrees is essential in order to try out a scheme which depends upon agricultural rotation—every expert with whom I have discussed this matter agrees that that is essential—we know it is a success, it might be possible and advantageous for some offshoot of the Scheme to be established in Central Africa. Therefore, it was thought that if we said in this Bill "East and Central Africa" it would mean that if it was found desirable to extend the operation of the Corporation to Central Africa, that could be done without another amending Bill.
At the same time I should make it perfectly plain that that cannot be done without the consent of Parliament first being obtained because the safeguard which Parliament has is that every year there has to be a Vote; Estimates have to be presented, and if at any time it was proposed that there should be such an extension of operations to Central Africa, an amount of money would have to be provided for that. So although the Bill would at any time in the future enable the Corporation to extend its activities to Central Africa, that could not be done without the specific consent of Parliament and the granting of a specific Vote. The Colonial Development Corporation will be kept in close touch with what is being done, and they will also be consulted.
That is the reason we included Central Africa—to enable the Corporation at some time in the future to extend its activities to Central Africa; but that does not give it a carte blanche. It will be able to extend only if it presents its scheme, gives full particulars, and the House approves of it. Having regard to that safeguard, I ask the House to accept this provision.
I say that at present we have in contemplation only East Africa, but if there is to be any long discussion or any suspicion of sinister motives, I will undertake to consider this point between now and the Report stage. All that we

thought was that there might be a possibility of an offshoot in Central Africa, and that if these words were included in the Bill that possibility would be covered, with the Parliamentary safeguard I have indicated.

Captain Crookshank: If the right hon. Gentleman is prepared, in the light of the discussion, to have a look at the point whether these words might be better left out of the Bill, and will let us know on Report stage what is the result of his consideration, I do not think we need worry the Committee further today on this point.

Mr. Griffiths: I have given that assurance.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

6.30 p.m.

Sir R. Acland: I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, at the end, to insert:
and of making experiments in the co-operative social organisation of communities of African producers.
If these words were inserted in the Bill the effect of subsection (2) would be that the Corporation would be charged with the duties already contained in that subsection, and also with the duty
of making experiments in the co-operative social organisation of communities of African producers.
The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Mott-Radclyffe), referring to Clause 1, mentioned the importance, in all of this work, of having the welfare of the African people constantly in mind. I feel very strongly, and I hope that the hon. Member will agree, that the welfare of the African people is not only a question of putting up such things as schools, hospitals, and so on, for African wage earners, but is also a question of considering whether wage earning is really the most suitable form of social organisation for promoting the welfare of African people.
In all our recent discussions on this Bill it has seemed to me almost to be taken for granted that the answer to that question is in the affirmative. All the way through we have talked about dividing up the area into farms of different sizes; sometimes 1,500 acres, sometimes 3,000 acres and sometimes 4,000 acres, each under a manager. One is left to assume


that the manager in all cases will be a European and it seems to me always to be assumed that the Africans in the scheme are to be his wage earners, and under his orders.
I certainly would not object to a large number of these different farms being cooperative on that pattern, to see how it goes. We would then be able to secure investigation on all sorts of things, such as what crops can best be produced, what areas of the country can be best managed co-operatively, the combating of soil erosion, what process is best suited to the ground, the getting of the products on to the market in the best possible condition, and what marketing arrangements would be most efficient. All those matters could be investigated under a manager employing African wage earners.
But in the speeches in support of the Bill I have not heard the smallest indication of the need for making investigation and experiments into something which is a little more profound than that, namely, into the question of what is the form of social organisation in agriculture best fitted to the genius of the African people. The very fact that this question has not been raised until this stage does pin-point what is, to my mind, the fundamental error in the whole of the project since its very inception. I am greatly surprised that the Conservative Opposition, which for three-and-a-half years has been chasing, pursuing and harrying this Scheme, has not at any time, so far as I am aware, put its finger on what would describe as the basic error—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: rose—

Sir R. Acland: The hon. Gentleman should wait until he has heard what, in my view, is the basic error. I have never heard the Conservative Party say in loud, clear tones, "It is wrong to go into Africa and see how you can use African acres and African workers to produce food for British larders." I have never heard the Conservative Party pinpoint that as the basic error.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not know whether the Conservative Party said it in loud tones, but we certainly have repeatedly said, in clear tones, that this scheme did not encourage peasant proprietorship in Tanganyika. It

was precisely because we feared that this Scheme would prejudice mechanised farming in the eyes of Africans, and hold up the increase of the co-operative use of machinery for peasant proprietors, that we have made that criticism from the very beginning.

Sir R. Acland: I think that hon. Members opposite were coming very near to the light; but I do not think they have quite come to the point of telling the Government that it was a wrong conception to go into Africa, taking money and machines in order to use African acres and African workers to produce food for British larders; and that the right way of going about it would be to see that European technique and machinery should be used to improve the social well-being of African people. If that had been done I feel sure that this question of the social organisation of communities of producers would have received their earnest attention long before now.
The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker), speaking on Clause 1. commented that on the Gezira scheme the Committee has perhaps listened to him ad nauseam about that desirable scheme. I certainly have heard him speak about it once or twice before, but never with any degree of nausea. I have always been delighted to hear him and I hope that we shall hear him on the subject of the Gezira scheme many times in the future. I do not know whether the same thing might be said of myself in relation to the smaller scheme at Mokwa, but there is a bond of interest between the two schemes, in that those in charge of the smaller scheme at Mokwa went to Gezira to see what was happening there before they launched their scheme.
So far as the smaller scheme is concerned, it is one by no means co-operative but with a European manager, with paid wage earners under him. I gather that in the Gezira Scheme in the Sudan co-operative peasant proprietorship forms a very large part of the whole pattern of that scheme. Therefore, my reason for moving this Amendment is to make sure that the Government, either by accepting the Amendment or by indicating that they will, between now and the Report stage, consider a corresponding Amendment of their own; or—and I do not exclude this—by giving assurances of what is to be the Government practice,


even without the need of an Amendment at all, will make it clear that this pattern of a manager with his wage earners is not to be the only or, indeed, the major pattern when this corporation gets to work to secure the investigation of everything possible.
I hope that we shall see in some of these different units, varying from 1,500 acres to 4,000 acres, the building of African villages, the bringing in of African settlers and work on co-operative village council lines; sometimes with the whole of them employed co-operatively on the whole of the land and at other times each one given his own patch of 30, 40 or maybe 50 acres which he can organise with the assistance of tractors owned and serviced by the whole community.
I hope that we shall be told that experiments of that kind will be pushed forward. Then, though it was found that the whole of this land for some reason —it may be on account of something in the soil or failure of the rainfall—was unsuitable for permanent cultivation. yet, because of the knowledge gained about the best forms of social organisation for African communities, the work done on this Scheme will be of immense value to us throughout the whole of the rest of the century.

Mr. Frederic Harris: While I am sure that the words in this Amendment have been suggested with a very sound motive, I sincerely hope that the Committee will not accept them, because they get away entirely from the principle behind the Scheme in this second effort by the Government to make an immediate success of what they want to do. Many of us have some doubts, I think reasonably, about what will happen; but if there is any suggestion of by-passing the immediate objective of making a success of the Scheme and deviating to a large degree with other expenditure at the expense of the people of this country, who have already spent so much, I suggest that would not be wise.
Socialists as a whole always have this extraordinary idea that the British people, or the Europeans, are not entitled to be in East Africa and that when they go out there they go always on the basis of exploitation. Some believe that the African is not looked after properly. That is utter

rubbish. In connection with my activities there, I have had brick houses built in East Africa which the Africans will not use. We cannot rush this procedure. The Africans will be far more contented if they get proper wages on a proper basis which will gradually improve their standard of life than if we try to rush forward with this idea which, unfortunately, some Socialists always try to put across. That idea just does not work.
Those who take a serious interest in the workers in East Africa recognise that the words suggested—I am sure quite sincerely—would bring no real benefit whatever if an attempt were made to put them into practice in this second effort by the Government. I am convinced that the answer to this problem is to be found in a continuation of the tremendous amount of welfare and other work which is already being done by the various Governments in East Africa, and the gradual raising of the standards by providing better wage levels. The hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) appeared to think that increases in wages were not really the main answer in the improvement of the lot of the African. I strongly disagree with him. One can do much harm to the African by trying to rush this procedure instead of trying to take things steadily by gradually increasing wages.

Sir R. Acland: To provide assistance with new techniques to a peasant living a peasant's way of life rushes him very much less than if he is suddenly transformed from a peasant into a wage earner. He is rushed much more if he is switched into a wage earner than if he is helped with new techniques.

Mr. Harris: The hon. Member talks about rushing a peasant into becoming a wage earner. Nearly every African is a wage earner in some form or another, whether he draws his wages in money or in kind. I have studied this problem in considerable detail. I am sure that the gradual procedure which has been followed for many years in East Africa in an effort to improve the lot of the native is the best way. One of the objections which I have to this Scheme is that the Government, without any consideration or understanding of that factor, rushed into East Africa and poured out plenty of money which, in many respects, got into the wrong hands and, as a result, they


have unsettled a large number of African natives, particularly in Tanganyika. That unsettlement will cause trouble in the years to come. The consequences of the manner in which Africans have been employed in the Tanganyika Scheme could be very serious. That is the madness of the East African schemes as a whole.
6.45 p.m.
The best way to tackle this problem is by bringing up the standards of the nation gradually, as the local administration are doing at present, with grand efforts in social welfare work. I think that the hon. Member for Gravesend must admit that. The best way is to take these steps steadily and soundly without giving a false impression to the natives. They must understand that they have to work and to look after themselves as far as possible. They cannot expect that the Europeans, or the British, will constantly be able to pay out money to help them. I am sure that the Africans who understand these problems would be the first to admit that the presence of British people in East Africa has meant great progress to them. The British have set examples and shown the native how to do things. The native is gradually improving his position and he has adopted in his own reserve many of the ideas of the British.
I have tried to form a partnership in the past with Africans in the style of limited companies, one of which was at the Karatina factory. One could speak for a long time when explaining the problems which would arise if we were to accept this Amendment and try to carry out the suggestion behind it in this Scheme. It is the task of the Government, if they go forward with this second leap in the dark, to concentrate on getting on with the Scheme and making it pay. They should not deviate at all from that idea or introduce other motives. Let us be a little bit more sound. Do not let us have these airy thoughts and general ideas which Socialists will always put across, either in this country or abroad, that in some way or other everybody can be looked after without doing any work. Let us try to avoid this kind of nonsense.

The Chairman: I should like to point out to the Committee that we cannot have

any discussion on general social organisation. The discussion must be related to the Amendment and to the question of the development of overseas resources: otherwise, one can see that the discussion may take all night.

Mr. James Johnson: I support the Amendment, because whatever may have happened in the past, this amended Scheme will be a success, though I am not too happy about the method of organisation. Paragraph 11 of the White Paper says that this Scheme will be formed in units varying from 1,500 to 6,000 acres and that there will be intensive supervision by men who can gain an intimate knowledge of the land which they farm. I am a little nervous in case, later, these men are given help and allowed to own these areas. With all deference to the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Frederic Harris), I should hate to see this area become another Kenya paradise. I must add that I fully recognise what has been done in Kenya. I admit all that, but I wish to plead here the case of the black Africans themselves.
What is the purpose of this Scheme? It has, I think, two aims in view. One is to increase food supplies and over-all production in Tanganyika. The other—and this is most important—is to raise the standard of living of the African people. Although I sit on the Socialist benches I hope that I am at least as sensible as some of the business men who sit opposite. I have heard a lot about the million tons of peanuts which have come out of land in West Africa under peasant cultivation. I recognise that that is an achievement. I have listened to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) who has delighted me with such phrases, today or in the past, as "the marriage between mechanization and peasant proprietorship." I think those are wonderful words, and I support this Amendment, because I wish to give to the black Africans more responsibility and more incentive in their lives. I am opposed to any future prospect of the blacks becoming, in a permanent future, either skilled or unskilled workers or wage earners under the Overseas Food Corporation.
Earlier, the hon. Baronet the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) talked about a particular scheme of organisation


to suit the native genius of the African people. I do not think we need to go as far as Tanganyika; we can see the Chaggas who, in their great coffee scheme, are working on a co-operative experiment. In fact, they have gone beyond working their own estates, and even this year they have sent at least two officials to the third co-operative conference at Stanford Hall, and they are really getting on with the job. For 25 years they have been doing this, while we in this country talk about the battle of ideas and how we shall need to lead or guide the native peoples to the Western way of life. For 25 years, the Chaggas have been having this democratic experience by means of their cooperative organisation.
It is not a matter of getting a maximum of food from a given geographical area. There are these other social and political experiences to be derived through co-operative organisation. I would say that, in the past, we have too often seen the black peoples as serfs of large capitalist combines in Africa. Today, we are instituting, not a capitalist combine, but a publicly-owned combine on a very large scale indeed. On these benches we like to think that our methods and even our kind of organisation are superior to those of the capitalist combines. We give the African workers better wages than they ever received in the past, but I think we might look beyond this old relationship of employer and worker or payer and payee, and find a co-operative form of organisation. We have heard some mention of Ghezira, which is an excellent scheme, and I am not going to say anything about that, because the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker), knows much more about it than I do. The more the hon. Member talks about it, the better I like it and the more I learn.
If we insert this Amendment in the Bill, I think we shall be able to look ahead to a time in the not-too-distant future when these people in East Africa may become self-reliant and independent, and as producers able to govern and organise their own affairs. In that future, we shall be able honestly, sincerely and with full confidence to look upon the partnership of black and white in tropical Africa.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: If I may, I would like to say a word or two in support of the Amendment, though whether this is

the right Bill in which to make it I am not able to say, as I am not sufficiently in touch with these questions of colonial development. I find myself in substantial agreement with everything that has been said by hon. Members opposite. If I may say so without offence to the hon. Baronet the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland), who has been taking particular interest in these affairs over the last year or so, since he went to Mokwa, if he had looked at the record of the proceedings on the original Bill, upstairs, he would have found that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. W. Fletcher), made this point time and time again.
So far as the hon. Baronet's side of the Committee is concerned, his hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin), also said that we should look more to the peasant producer and try to help him to produce more. Of course, in West Africa, I think I am right in saying that, under the late Mr. Oliver Stanley when he was Colonial Secretary, great progress was made in mechanisation and in the encouragement of the local peasant producers to raise their production of groundnuts.
To come nearer to the immediate point of the producer co-operatives, I think everybody regards this Scheme as being one of the greatest contributions that can be made to the development of underdeveloped territories. It is not only a question of the Gezira scheme, from which there are very interesting lessons to be learned, but into which there is not, unfortunately, time to go. It is also a question of the marriage of mechanisation and the individual producers in what may be described as gigantic producer co-operatives. It is in the smaller co-operatives, such as we find in Ceylon, however, that these efforts have been most successful. Another instance is found in the Nile Valley where, to take the place of the water wheels around which camels used to go, pumps have now been installed, with very great benefit to the people as well as to the camels.
I would like to underline what other hon. Members have said that the basis of the owner-ocupier, the peasant producer, is one of the most important considerations in any scheme for development. Equally, it is not just a matter of certain people having been provided,


luckily, with a darker pigmentation of the skin to make it easier for them to work in the mid-day sun. A large number of others will find very great benefit from such organisations, and, if any hon. Member is interested, I would simply point out to him that the Flue-cured Tobacco Association of Ontario has one of the most successful co-operative marketing schemes that I know of anywhere.
I support what the hon. Baronet has said, and, if this is not the place to do it, perhaps somewhere or other, use may be made by the Corporation of this suggestion in order to see whether a comparatively small outlay may not produce a very large return.

Mr. Rankin: There can be no more fitting instrument for saving the soul of the Tory Party than the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker), who has always shown a very progressive attitude on colonial affairs. Now that the Opposition are joining with us in supporting this Amendment, I hope that the unusual alliance will have a sufficiently impressive weight with the Minister to induce him, even if, at the moment, he cannot accept it, at least to go into the matter and perhaps give us a very favourable statement on the Report stage.
I do not think there is a sound argument against it. All that we are asking is the making of experiments in the cooperative social organisation of communities of African producers. The experiment is to be a continuing one, and, if it is to be successful, we have to carry the Africans with us. If we have to do that, we have to get trained men. That is absolutely essential. It is no use giving the African the idea that, in the operation of this scheme, he is going to be under a white boss, and I am certain that that is not in the mind of my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary. He has to have the sense of ownership, and the knowledge that he, too, may be able to become an owner of one of these units. If he is to achieve that goal, then we must give him the necessary education.
I suggest, therefore, that it is part and parcel of our work to use a fraction of the proceeds of production to provide that social and co-operative frame of organisation suggested in the Amendment. I hope that as both sides of the Committee are taking this sensible atti-

tude towards a modest Amendment my right hon. Friend will give it his earnest consideration.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is very interesting to hear the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) make such a powerful plea for the individual ownership of land in Africa, and when he said that he hoped that the African peasant would become the owner of his own unit, no one could have been more pleased than I was.

Mr. Rankin: I think the hon. Gentleman is putting a wrong interpretation on what I said. We are dealing here, as he knows perfectly well, not with individual but with co-operative ownership.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Even that is a stage further. As the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) would have said, that is on the verge of the light, if not the light itself.
We support the ownership of land in Africa, and, curious as it may seem, we support the ownership of land in England as well. Were it not that I should be out of order in doing so, I could make more than a passing reference to the recent withdrawal of a poster about land ownership being an incentive for buying war savings certificates. That poster was withdrawn by the Government because land ownership is not the policy of the Socialist Party. We were glad to hear that plea for peasant proprietorship in Africa, and I think I speak for the whole Conservative Party when I say that we are glad that the hon. Member for Gravesend has moved this Amendment. I do not say that either the words of the Amendment or their inclusion in this Bill are necessarily—

Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman has a rival.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Well, at least we are a free and independent party, and in that, also, the Government have a good deal to learn from the Opposition.
As I was saying, I do not say that either the words of the Amendment or this Bill as the place to include them are most suitable. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) queried those facts himself and wondered whether this was the best place or


whether these were the best words. For example, I do not like the use of the word "social." in this Amendment—not that the purpose is anti-social—because the inclusion of the words "social organisation of communities" as one of the functions of a task that is economic may, I think, lead to misunderstanding. Nor do I believe that this is necessarily the right Bill in which to include a provision of this kind, but with the general intention that we want to encourage African peasant proprietorship at every stage, I am in wholehearted agreement.
Throughout these debates, and, as was pointed out, throughout the Committee stage of the Bill, the Conservative Opposition criticised the mammoth scheme, in part, on the grounds that it made no provision for peasant proprietorship. We support African peasant proprietorship and co-operative producing and selling organisations in a country where, we are glad to think, the word "co-operative" has no political tinge, and we support, in what is a mechanised age, the cooperative use of machinery in Africa and elewhere.
Hon. Members can do a great deal worse than read two recent official reports. First, there is the report of the survey into the problem of mechanisation in native agriculture in tropical African Colonies with its conclusions that we have a long way to go before we shall know anything about it, and that we have by no means reached the stage mentioned by the Minister of Food where we now know how to conquer Africa. This modest, in a sense humble, but thoroughly well-informed approach to a highly complicated subject is insistent on the need for years of experiment before we can come to any conclusions. But it is generally believed that the co-operative provision of mechanised facilities for African producers is probably the best solution.
Or hon. Members can turn to the Report of the West African Oil Seeds Mission, with its general conclusion that the encouragement of African farm families should be one of our main duties. We very much regret that in the East African Scheme the Government did not approach the problem along the lines of these two reports. Had they done so, they would have had no spectacular failure, and might well have laid the

ground for a highly profitable future for the African producer.
These are the sort of facts that an inquiry would have brought out, and that is one of the main reasons why we regret the failure of the Government to agree to an inquiry. We certainly prefer the attitude of the hon. Member for Gravesend and his plea for peasant proprietorship to a rather sinister phrase on page 15 of the White Paper on the future of the Corporation. The Committee will notice, at the top of page 15, these words:
The high seasonal demands for power and labour.
The word "seasonal" suggests that there will be a call for African labour only at certain seasons of the year—uprooting them from their homes, removing them from their tribal organisations, and bringing them away for only a season for a particular job. We do not believe that is in the best interest of Africa. We prefer the ideal of peasant proprietorship with personal responsibility harnessed to the application of the best modern science and the utmost help that British advisers can give. As I said, we are not convinced that this is the best place in which to enshrine in a Bill the ideas which, I think, are common to many hon. Members of the Committee, but with the general purpose of the hon. Member for Gravesend I, for one, am in entire agreement.

Mr. Dugdale: May I say, at the outset, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies and myself are in entire sympathy with the idea underlying this Amendment. But I think that if hon. Members read the original Act, the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, they will see that under Section 1 (2, b) the Corporation, has, in fact, power
to promote the carrying on of any such activities by other bodies or persons, and for that purpose to establish or expand, or promote the establishment or expansion of, other bodies to carry on any such activities either under the control or partial control of the Corporation or independently, and to give assistance to such bodies or to other bodies or persons appearing to the Corporation to have facilities for the carrying on of any such activities, including financial assistance by the taking up of share or loan capital or by grant, loan or otherwise.
In other words, they can, if they so desire, assist co-operative organisation.
We do not feel that the Overseas Food Corporation is necessarily the most suitable organisation to carry out co-opera-


tive work. On the whole, it is engaged in large-scale farming, and I would take this opportunity, as did the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), of commending to the Committee the report on mechanised agriculture in East Africa, which is a most valuable document. But, by and large, it is the duty of the Corporation to engage in what is large-scale farming, and we do not think that its primary duty is to make experiments in co-operative social organisations of this kind.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Is not the hon. Gentleman really saying that we cannot have large-scale farming at the same time as peasant farming, that large-scale farming must necessarily be the type of large mechanised farming we have had in the past?

Mr. Dugdale: Large-scale farming would appear to me to be farming in large blocks, rather than in small peasant blocks.
But I agree entirely on the value of cooperation. I found, personally, that the growth of the co-operative movement in East Africa during recent years was one of the most exhilarating and exciting things there. I was very glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) pay tribute to the Chagga. I have seen the work this tribe has done in building up a really fine cooperative movement. They have built a movement which has placed them in the forefront of coffee growers. If they had not had such a movement they would not have developed coffee growing as individuals to anything like the extent they have done. During recent years we have taken great pains, by sending out advisers to East Africa and other Colonies, to do all we can to build up the co-operative movement.
This is not the exact Bill to place upon a new Corporation a specific duty outside its normal and very important duty, namely, that of seeing that it runs this new experiment with the greatest possible success commercially and in the production of groundnuts. We are aware that it is of the utmost importance that the welfare of Africans shall be in the forefront of the duties placed upon this Corporation. We do not wish to see the Corporation run in any way as an outside

body imposing itself upon Africans and exploiting Africans for the benefit of the people of this country. We want to see it as a first-class employer, as an employer of labour that consults the Africans whenever possible, that helps them to develop themselves and helps to develop their economic system. But we do not think that the actual creation of a co-operative movement and the encouragement of
…co-operative social organisation of communities…
is, in fact, a duty which should be placed upon this new Corporation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby was afraid that men running large units might eventually own them. There is no intention whatever in this Bill that that should be so. We do not envisage at any time that the men running these comparatively large units within the Corporation scheme shall become the owners of those units. I think it is necessary to make that abundantly clear, because it would be most unfortunate if ideas gained ground that they were there on the way to running their own farms. That is not the case.
The fact that we do not feel we can accept this Amendment does not mean that we do not see the importance of a co-operative movement. In the past we have done everything possible to encourage it, and we have encouraged it with very considerable success. The figures of the growth of co-operative movements in East Africa are quite staggering, particularly in Nyasa Province, where innumerable societies have grown up within recent years.
We want to see that growth encouraged. We want to see the co-operative movement become one of the main policies of African agriculture, and we are convinced that it will so become. With those words I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) will withdraw the Amendment, with the assurance that we give the highest possible priority to the development of co-operative institutions in Africa.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Alport: I should like to support the Amendment moved by the hon. Baronet the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland), and I hope that he is as dissatisfied as I am with the reply we


have just had from the Minister of State. I cannot understand how it is that some provision of this sort should have been left out of the Bill we are considering. After all, in the original White Paper "A Plan for the Mechanised Production of Groundnuts in East and Central Africa (Cmd. 7030), it was envisaged that the land developed by the Corporation would be transferred eventually to the peoples of the territories. It will be remembered that it went on to say, in paragraph 42, that the transfer could not be immediate in so far as the whole scheme depended upon mechanisation. It said:
It would be unthinkable to hand over to any community such highly productive mechanised units, requiring skilled management, merely to allow them to revert to wasteful individual cultivation which has proved to he so ruinous to the land, and so inimical to the African social structure
But the basis of the scheme is radically changed by this new Bill, and the extent to which that change has taken place is well borne out by the statement on page 14 of the White Paper on "The Future of the Overseas Food Corporation" (Cmd. 8125), which says:
The sequence of operations would be:—

(a) Felling by the chain method,…
(b) Burning the felled trees, stumping and twig picking by hand."
As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will realise, this second process is the traditional process used by all African tribes of clearing new land for cultivation. Therefore, it would seem to me that as this scheme now falls back on processes which have been age-old in Africa, the objection to making it possible for peasant proprietors to come into existence in the various plantations which the Corporation is to continue to hold and develop goes by the board.
After all, there is an example in the fact that a European or European managed plantation of 100 acres is to be started experimentally. Surely, if it is possible for such a plantation to be made available for European management, some similar experiment on a co-operative basis could be made available quite easily to those Africans capable of taking advantage of the opportunities this allows. I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have been gravely concerned about the emphasis this scheme has placed right from the beginning upon

the African as a wage earner. Indeed, I noticed in the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) that his main claim in regard to improved treatment of the Africans was not accommodation or amenities, but that the Corporation had paid higher wages. But I can assure him—and I think he will agree with me—that from the point of view of the welfare of the Africans it is accommodation, amenity and diet, not money, that are most important.
To obtain those, the best plan is to ensure that he has available, under proper supervision by agricultural officers, land which can support an improved standard of living, particularly with regard to his nutrition and accommodation. It seems to me that what the Scheme is in danger of doing is to revive the old plantation processes of German government in the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa. Although there are certain advantages from an economic point of view, there are grave disadvantages from a social and political point of view in allowing the development of great plantations of this sort.
In supporting this Amendment, I should like to welcome the conversion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Gravesend to the idea of a property-owning democracy.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Are we to understand that a property-owning democracy means that everybody must be in the co-operative movement?

Mr. Alport: I was referring to the remarks made by the hon. Baronet, which appeared to me to involve individual ownership, although there might quite easily be producer co-operative marketing, which we have supported right from the 1930's in this country. I am glad that he is a convert to it, and all I can do is to express the hope that he will join us in applying this principle of a property-owning democracy not only in far-away Africa but nearer home.

Mr. Coldrick: I had no intention of participating in this debate, but having regard to the welcome accorded by some hon. Members opposite to co-operative development in Africa, and knowing something about their general attitude to the co-operative movement in this country, I must say


that I am a little suspicious of the kind of support which they offer. It is news to me that the Conservative Party are interested in a property-owning democracy, because I can conceive of no form of property-owning democracy that can surpass co-operative ownership.
I welcome the assistance that is being given by my right hon. Friend to the development of the co-operative movement in the Colonies in general, but I am doubtful whether this Amendment constitutes the best vehicle for this purpose. On the other hand, I recognise—and I think hon. Members opposite will agree—that what we are seeking to do is to create a situation in which a person's fortune will be proportionate to his own industry and not to the industry of someone else. The function of co-operation is not just to help others but to help them to help themselves. Unfortunately, as has been indicated from their speeches, hon. Members opposite want a large number of people working for wages. But why do they work for wages? Most of those people would naturally prefer to work for themselves, but it is because other people have deprived them of their property that they are constrained to work for someone else for wages.
I appreciate that under the Scheme of large-scale production there will be certain difficulties, but I suggest to my right hon. Friend that co-operation admits of varied practices. I believe that if we embark upon large-scale industry and employ wage labour, there is a grave danger that the workers will be disinterested in production and consequently the Scheme will not likely to be as productive as it otherwise would be. If it is possible to come to an agreement with a number of small people and get them to agree that under supervision they will proceed with the development of their territory so that they can have a personal interest in its productivity, I believe that, by linking their individual interests with the development of co-operative organisation, we shall stand a chance of making this Scheme a success.
There is this fundamental difference between ourselves and hon. Members opposite. They are stressing, not the cooperative character of this experiment and its development, but the private owner-

ship of property. Unless we agree to establish peasant proprietorship and get these people to co-operate for the purpose of developing their social institutions under their own control, we shall not develop that sense of responsibility which is desirable from the point of view of prosperity and the welfare of the Africans generally.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: The Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland), for which I have very considerable sympathy, asks for schemes of
social organisation of communities of African producers.
But when he moved the Amendment he told us that he always felt it was wrong to institute schemes in our Colonial Empire the sole object of which was to provide food and so forth for the United Kingdom or the colony-owning Power, and not to raise the standard of living of the natives in those areas. My recollection is that he voted for the original Groundnuts Scheme. If I am doing him an injustice, perhaps he will say so. Does the hon. Baronet deny that he voted for the original Groundnuts Scheme?
The object of that scheme was clear. It was to produce groundnuts in considerable quantities and increase the fat ration of the United Kingdom. Nothing was ever said about welfare until the Scheme started to go wrong. In other days hon. Members opposite would have called that sort of scheme "exploitation." Now it is called planning. I want to extract from hon. Members opposite an explanation about the long-term object of the now reduced Scheme. Paragraph 14 of the White Paper says—

Mr. J. Griffiths: If I may intervene, we have already discussed this on the Question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. We are now discussing an Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland). The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Mott-Radclyffe) is now straying far beyond the scheme.

The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Gomme-Duncan): I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that it is for the Chair to decide such matters.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: It was difficult to discuss the hon. Baronet's Amendment


until we were quite certain what was the long-term objective of the present scheme which we are discussing as a whole. Paragraph 14 of the White Paper says:
The scheme must now be regarded as a scheme of large-scale experimental development to establish the economics of clearing and mechanised … agriculture.
What is the object of this experiment? Is the object in the long run to provide foodstuffs in greater quantities for the United Kingdom or the Western world; or is the object of the long-term experiment to raise the standard of life among the Africans and help their own agricultural methods to improve so that they can benefit? To some extent, the two can run parallel, but there must come a point beyond which both objectives cannot be pursued at one and the same time. I ask for enlightenment on those points.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. W. Fletcher: My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) mentioned that at every stage of our discussions on colonial development both he and I have spoken in favour of peasant proprietorship. The combination of Bury and Banbury is almost irresistible. We talk as if there has not been a very largescale—not experimental but successful producing scheme in Africa which, though it is not called a co-operative, has, in fact, produced the largest and most valuable crop in that area for 30 years, and that is cotton in Uganda.
I happened to be staying with the then Governor of Uganda, in 1919, when the whole of the scheme and the rules for working it were drawn up. There, we have a complete scheme, exactly parallel to a co-operative movement. The head man of each village came into the markets, which were under careful Government control, with competition in prices, very often with the land in the various areas owned by the community and not by the individual. Under that scheme we had the grower of the cotton very interested, and his wives very often filled a very necessary part in Africa—doing most of the hard work and carrying the cotton into the markets on their heads.
That, then, is an actual scheme which has been working and it is a little naïve to talk now as if a great discovery had been made. Although I am entirely in sympathy with the Amendment, I must

point out that many years before it was called "co-operative" or taken under the powerful and wealthy wing of the Cooperative movement, such a scheme did exist and was producing hundreds of thousands of bales of cotton—and the figures were given in the House within the last 48 hours—which were a great dollar saver. I hope that sufficient notice will be taken of that large-scale and successful work in Tanganyika, well past the experimental stage.
After the 1914 war there was the same lack of fats throughout the world and in 1919, in Tanganyika. I produced several thousands of tons of groundnuts in the Kondoa-Irangi area. I did it by somewhat simpler methods, and slightly less costly methods than those employed by the Government—by the more simple process of approaching the native chiefs concerned and persuading them, in turn, to get their communities to plant groundnuts. The crop was brought to a central area and sold, and shops were available in which they could buy things at Government-controlled prices. It always surprises me that the Government do not draw for information upon these well-known and established precedents, even though they may go back rather a long way.
The Minister of State spoke of this as a new experiment. What has been happening for the last four years? It is astonishing that we call this a pilot scheme. Apparently, the Socialist idea is that when a ship is well on the rocks and deeply embedded, they send for the pilot and produce the pilot scheme. That is the wrong way round.
I support this Amendment because any effort to increase peasant proprietorship is a step in the right direction. Whether we call it co-operative or whether we like to add this word "social" which, like King Charles' head, bobs up in anything which hon. Members opposite ever say—and it is a word which has no clearly defined meaning—whether we leave out the word "social" or put it in, I do not mind very much, but this Amendment is certainly a step in the right direction. But do not let it be just a pious wish, just an Amendment on a piece of paper. Let it have a good deal more behind it.
I think the Government are making a mistake in seeking to reject the Amendment. When I questioned the Minister


he insisted upon talking about large-scale farming. But large-scale farming is just as much a fact in an area which is being developed under a peasant proprietor scheme, where we may be loaning a certain amount of machinery to those who are developing it, as it is in an area which is being mechanically ploughed by a few people or where they are mechanically gathering in the crops.
It is just as much the duty of this newly reborn Corporation to carry out that first kind of production as it is to carry out a scheme in which they have a few natives as their employees. We can certainly produce nearly all the major products of East Africa in very large-scale blocks by lending machinery to the natives for them to do it, thus leaving them with a sense of proprietorship and with a sense of their co-operative efforts. We can do it as much in that way as by ploughing the land ourselves. It is a mistaken policy and a bad argument on the part of the Government to rule out this form of activity, thereby pinning themselves again to the one form of production in Africa which hitherto has proved a failure.
I remember that in the days when I used to grow sisal in Africa—and I have carried on for 25 years since then—we started mechanisation there. It sounded excellent but it did not work, for a simple and natural reason. When we had cleared a very large area at great expense and put in our smaller plants—the bulbils —the local monkeys treated them as a freshly planted salad for themselves, in the early stages, and what the monkeys did not eat, the elephants trod down. That is a form of mechanisation which we found extremely irritating.
Why should the Ministry seek to exclude what is a natural ancillary form of experiment and confine themselves mechanically to mechanisation? It seems to me that they should reconsider this matter. In spite of the doubts cast by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Coldrick), upon the support offered from this side of the Committee, the Amendment has been supported from all sides by those who have had experience of Africa, and I think it would be wise for the Government to withdraw their opposition to it. If they do not, I hope that those who have moved the Amendment will take the matter into the Divi-

sion Lobby, not only on its merits but to show the Government Front Bench that they must not stick too closely to the brief but must see that it is quite possible to swallow and digest new ideas even in the atmosphere of the House of Commons.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I speak now without a brief. What the Minister of State said was that if at any time what is proposed in the Amendment were thought to be desirable, then it could be done under the existing powers. What he said, and what I repeat, is that we encourage in every possible way the growth of cooperation—both producers' co-operation and consumers' co-operation—in each of the colonial territories. Not only do we encourage it but in most of the territories we have co-operative advisers, whose job it is to advise the peoples there on the setting up and running of co-operative organisations and on encouraging their growth.
The Amendment would place this duty upon the Corporation. I do not think it is wise to place the duty upon the Corporation, which has a limited sphere—that of running the scheme which we have already outlined. On the other hand, let me give my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) this assurance. If this new scheme is a success, and when the time is reached for us to consider its future, then if he asks me whether we shall at that stage consider co-operative ownership I can tell him that it certainly will be considered. We are not against co-operation; indeed, we are encouraging it in every possible way.
It is the answer in Africa and elsewhere—not what is called individual peasant ownership. As a matter of fact, part of our programme is combatting the old peasant ownership, if I may use the phrase in its old sense, which led to soil erosion, over-grazing and such problems as that. It is in those fields that producers' co-operation can play its biggest part. As we have shown by what we are doing, we are anxious to encourage cooperation in every possible way and if at any time it is thought that any part of this scheme can best be run by producers' co-operation or co-operative organisations, that can be done under the existing Act. I can assure my hon.


Friend that if that is thought to be the best way, it will be done. That is why I think his Amendment is unnecessary.

Sir R. Acland: In view of the assurance given by the Government, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Captain Crookshank: I beg to move, in page 2, line 25, after "Corporation." to insert:
and the Corporation shall he charged with the duty of winding-up the project carried out under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section three of the principal Act in such manner and within such period as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
We now come to a new subsection. I am afraid, as so often happens in these cases, that the Amendment as drafted is not frightfully clear, because we have to refer to a paragraph in the original Act. The subsection starts, in the lines before that in which our Amendment is to come, by wiping out subsection (1) of Section 3 of the Act of 1948. What that subsection did was to establish the Overseas Food Corporation, with the duty, on the one hand, of formulating and carrying out projects for production in various places outside the United Kingdom, and secondly, with the specific duty, as its first objective, of carrying out the Groundnuts Scheme in East Africa. All that is taken out by the opening words of this subsection in this Bill.
I am not a lawyer, and I see that the right hon. Gentleman is not at the moment fortified by legal advice, but perhaps he would look into the point whether by saying in this subsection of this Bill,
Subsection (1) of section three of the principal Act shall cease to have effect so far as it regulates the duty of the Overseas Food Corporation…
it washes out the actual establishment of the Overseas Food Corporation itself; because it is that subsection of Section 3 of the original Act which establishes the Overseas Food Corporation. I hope that, at any rate for the purpose of the argument, the Corporation is still in existence. The opening words of this subsection of this Bill appears to wipe out the whole of that subsection in that Section of the Act. I wonder whether it is washed out or not. It is, of course, a legal drafting point, but perhaps it can be looked at by the

appropriate people at the appropriate time.
Our Amendment proposes to insert words the effect of which is that the Corporation must now start—if I may use the expression—to wind itself up. Of course, if we go back to the main issue, which I cannot do beyond just alluding to it, we remember that one of the objectives we had during the Second Reading debate, and which we should have continued today if an Amendment of ours had been called, was to have an inquiry to see whether all the proposed plans of the Government and of the Overseas Food Corporation are, in fact, practicable. In the House we were defeated on the question of the inquiry; and in the Committee stage now, through no fault of our own, we have been unable to debate it; and, therefore, for the purpose of the argument, we have to accept what is said in the White Paper, that the Scheme must now be regarded as an experimental development scheme.
That being the situation, we are not ourselves satisfied that there is any particular reason why the Overseas Food Corporation should continue at all in the changed circumstances, because the White Paper has pointed out that there is no suggestion of any other scheme either in East Africa or anywhere else, except the one referred to in the White Paper; and this Scheme, as I pointed out the other day—and I do not want to repeat all that I said on Second Reading—when compared with what was envisaged when the Corporation was originally established under Section 3 of the original Act, is comparatively small.
Let us bear in mind what we were doing there. The Corporation not only was to take over the Groundnuts Scheme in East Africa as its first objective, but it was also to secure, let me remind hon. Members,
… the investigation, formulation and carrying out of projects for production or processing in places outside the United Kingdom of foodstuffs or agricultural products other than foodstuffs…"—
and for marketing them. If one pauses on those words, one must conclude that it was a tremendous remit that it had. The whole world was under its purview. It could investigate and make plans for growing any agricultural product whether foodstuffs or not. It could, for example, have gone in for great schemes in


different parts of the world for growing food—as, indeed, it did, as we know, in Queensland. We shall come to that on Clause 4. All this tremendous power which it was given has now been washed out by the opening words of this subsection, and all that it is left with, according to the White Paper, is this comparatively—compared with those great plans —minute scheme in East Africa, which will not involve any land use over 250,000 or 300,000 acres.
7.45 p.m.
That being so, and the Colonial Office having taken over the responsibility—and I am very glad they have—that having happened, it does raise the question, at any rate if for nothing more than the argument, whether it is worth while keeping this apparatus going for this modified purpose, when the supervision of the purpose is in future to be in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman, whose Department we all admit—and Clause 1 went through without a Division—is eminently suitable to carry it out. That being so, we suggest that now we bad better set about closing down the activities of the Corporation.
Therefore, this Amendment says that by regulations which the right hon. Gentleman would make, and, therefore, over which we in this Chamber would have ultimate control, he should plan the dissolution of this body. Of course, it cannot stop tomorrow, even if the Bill were passed into law with this Amendment. Obviously, it must have some sort of slowing down—a period on a care-andmaintenance basis, if hon. Members like —until the right hon. Gentleman decides what is the appropriate moment. Of course, there are further Amendments later on, on which my hon. Friends and I will be able to amplify the various aspects of this matter, but that for which we are now asking general acceptance is the proposition that the time has come for the Corporation to end.
If that proposition is accepted, then we say that the best way for it to come to an end is by some regulatory function of the Secretary of State, because he would then come before the House and give us the time within which, under the regulations, he thought this should happen. I do not see that there is any exception to be taken to this as a method,

granted that it is agreed that winding up is desirable; though I can quite see that that may be a matter of difference between hon. and right hen. Gentlemen opposite and my hon. Friends and myself on this side. But I do say that I think it is clear from the drafting of the Bill before us that there is not in it any provision whereby the Overseas Food Corporation could come to an end. As I read the Bill, it would require fresh legislation for that.
I give this as a little encouragement to the right hon. Gentleman, because it may well suit him very well to act in that way. If our subsequent Amendments, or something like them, are accepted, it may suit him very well to bring the Corporation to an end, and in that case I am quite sure he would not want to have legislation about it, but that it would be a convenience to close these activities by regulations presented to the House and subject to the approval of the House.
That is the case for this Amendment. It is a perfectly simple one. The main issue is whether or not we want the Corporation to go on with the attenuated functions and with the very small sphere of activities it is to have in the future. I should not have been so certain about this if it had not been for the fact that the Corporation itself, in its own report to the Minister of Food, said that it did not contemplate embarking on any further schemes in East Africa or anywhere else. Therefore, it has talked itself from going very far afield. The right hon. Gentleman, on the earlier Amendment, said that he was prepared to consider even taking away its powers to do anything except in East Africa.
When we look back to the 1948 Act and see the tremendous opportunities which were given to it—I am not blaming it for not taking the opportunities; that is not my point at the moment—and compare the opportunities which will be left after this Bill is passed, I think it would be convenient for it to be closed down. We will discuss later what remains to be done, but as a general proposition it should be closed down within a reasonable time limit to be laid down by the right hon. Gentleman under regulations approved by this House. The proposition which my right hon. Friends and I put


before the Committee is that the Corporation should be closed down, though I must admit that, owing to drafting difficulties, the Amendment does not look as if it meant anything of the kind.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As to whether the effect of the present wording would be to wipe out the Corporation altogether, my legal advice is that the fears of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on that score are unfounded. In the Second Reading debate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, and myself, in closing the debate, discussed the question of accepting this Scheme in this limited form, in this limited area—which may still be further limited by what I have promised to look at between now and the next stage—and whether it was desirable that this new revised scheme should be undertaken by a Corporation reduced in number, sited in future in Tanganyika, working in close association with the Tanganyikan Government, with a representative of that Government on the new Corporation under the supervision of the Colonial Office, and in that way in close association with the Colonial Development Corporation.
Is it best to continue the Corporation, or would it be better to wind up the Corporation? If we did that we should have to consider whether some other body would have to take it over. We considered that, and I do not think that at this stage the Committee would expect me to go into the arguments. I considered, first of all, whether the Colonial Development Corporation might take it over and came to the conclusion that it would be better if the present Corporation were maintained—the Corporation for this Scheme for its limited purpose. At some time in the future we shall have to consider the future of this Scheme. Obviously, we shall have to consider it, not only as a matter concerning this Government but in association with the Government of Tanganyika.
Whether it was right or wrong, the original impulse behind this Scheme was the fact that we were desperately short of fats, and it was, in its original conception, an attempt very quickly to provide the fats we so desperately needed. It was a Scheme the major purpose of which was to provide us with certain essential foodstuffs. It now becomes part of colonial development. There are 50

projects of the Colonial Development Corporation, and, looking to the future, we shall have to examine a very big and important problem. This will be a problem that the Government may have to consider, and the Opposition, if at some time they form the Government, may have to consider; I do not know. These colonial territories are steadily marching towards self-government and I should like to pose a question to the Opposition for the future. When that stage is reached are we to have in colonial territories which are at or near self-government industrial enterprises owned by His Majesty's Government, controlled by them?
As I see it, that is one of the major problems with which we are faced for the future. We do not face it now in Tanganyika. I do not know what we shall face in seven years' time. I thought, therefore, that for the moment it was better to keep this separate under this Corporation within its limited field. I have already agreed there should be no thought of trying to build up this Corporation for Central as well as East Africa.
I have agreed to look at that, and am prepared to say, at the appropriate stage, that it shall be East Africa only_ In view of that, I think we did right to keep this Corporation to work this Scheme. It is agreed by everybody that seven years are required to prove whether or not it will be a success. If at the end of seven years it has been a success, that will be the time to consider its future.
Obviously then, it seems to me, whatever may have happened in Tanganyika by that time, at whatever stage they may be, even if they do not develop beyond the existing stage, its future would obviously have to be decided in consultation with the Government of Tanganyika. For those reasons I think that if, as is suggested by the Amendment, we abolished the Corporation we should have to proceed to set up something else, or to transfer it to the Colonial Development Corporation.
It is quite clear that if this Amendment were carried and the effect were to abolish the O.F.C.—if I might use initials—the right hon. and gallant Gentleman does not intend to propose, at a later stage, that the Colonial Office


should run this Scheme, because the Colonial Office is not equipped to run schemes of this kind. If the O.F.C. were abolished some other corporation would have to be created, or it would have to be transferred to the C.D.C., and I have given the reasons why I have rejected that for the moment, although I have not considered it fully. For those reasons we think it desirable and essential to maintain this Corporation, and I ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Sir Ralph Glyn: Although I accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said, if this Corporation is maintained there is always the danger that somebody will come along and say, "Here is a machine to start some other scheme." If we can have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that it will never be allowed to expand again—

The Minister of Food (Mr. Webb): The Minister of Food (Mr. Webb) indicated assent.

Sir R. Glyn: The Amendment suggests that it should be wound up, and that would get rid of any danger of that sort, which seems to me a safe position.
I recognise the Secretary of State's difficulty, that there must be a period when it has got to be wound up. From the experience we have of development in the Colonies this does seem to be an anachronism. It has got a magnificent title but is doing a very small job, and there is no assurance that it will be satisfied with such a small task, having such a pretentious name. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would say that it is in its expiring moments, that it will be clamped down and will not be the machine for other and more expensive experiments. There may be some reason in what he has said, but I think it would be much better if he accepted the suggestion of the Amendment and wound up the Corporation.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee a little more about the reasons why he decided that the Colonial Development Corporation might not sooner or later—I do not say at this very moment—take over this scheme. The Colonial Development Corporation is now running 12 schemes in Central and

East Africa with a capital commitment of £6½ million, and they are therefore there.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows. I have taken a good deal of interest in the Colonial Development Corporation, and I have said more than once, and still think so, that it has too great a job to do already. I do not think it is possible for one Corporation to run schemes in all parts of the world as this one is doing, and I have urged that the Colonial Development Corporation should be split up, either on the basis of functions or on a geographical basis. I do not mind which, but I think myself that a geographical basis is right.
If it were divided in that way so that there was a Colonial Development Corporation for, say, Africa I would think it quite sensible to give that rather more limited corporation the job of handling this post-groundnut Scheme. I think that would be a good basis of organisation. I cannot see a good reason why that should not be done. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman would like to tell us his reasons, but I am not at all convinced that there are any good reasons for turning down the suggestion which has been made.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I would like to support what my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) has said. I could not understand the reasons which the Colonial Secretary gave about not keeping the Overseas Food Corporation in being in seven years' time. I should have thought that both Corporations, in due course, would suffer from the same problem, namely, that they are Government-owned and will be operating in self-governing territories. I hope and believe, as he does, that as time goes on these territories will be drawn more closely to us and that these are problems which will not arise, especially if I can follow on the suggestions on the last Amendment we discussed, and we can use some of those views for seeing if we cannot build up in these territories overseas a property-owning democracy.
I feel strongly that the area for activities between the Colonial Development Corporation and this new Corporation that is proposed is indefinite. I am being driven to the conclusion that the actual


production job is best left to the private producer, unless there are very big schemes, such as the use of mechanised clearing—which does not seem to be working, and which the report itself suggests is breaking down. I am, therefore, driven to the conclusion that the actual production job should more and more be left to free enterprise to undertake, and that this Corporation should undertake much more the development of railways, roads, and so on.
If anyone has followed the result of driving the Pan-American highway through Mexico—one of the biggest developments in the last five years—it will be realised that if some of the money spent on this project had been spent on improving roads the results might have been much better. I think that the suggestion made about this Clause is a good one and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reconsider it on the Report stage.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: There is one further point to be considered and that is the psychological aspect. There is no doubt that the cause of colonial development has been done a good deal of harm by the failure of the groundnuts scheme. It is generally known that it has been a complete and utter failure. The Colonial Secretary admitted as much in his speech. Without going into the controversy of whether anything could have been done to mitigate the failure, the fact is that it has been a failure, and everyone knows it.
In these circumstances, would it not be better to wind up the Corporation? Whether we should go on with a new scheme or not is another matter. The view of the Government is that we should go on with another scheme, but maybe we, on these benches, think that there should be a further inquiry before we commit ourselves. Whatever happens, psychologically it would be a good thing in Africa and in this country if the Corporation which has been a hopeless flop was wound up and a new start made.

Mr. Hurd: We have been asked by the Colonial Secretary to allow the Overseas Food Corporation another seven years of life. We know that Sir Donald Perrott, deputy chairman, is retiring so far as the Tanganyika Scheme is concerned and it has been suggested

—perhaps the Minister can assure me on this one way or the other—that the chairman, Sir Eric Coates, may be finding other fields of activity. We are left in doubt as to who, in future, is to be the Overseas Food Corporation.
It is important that the Committee should know to whom we are entrusting this new effort to retrieve what we can in Tanganyika. It seems to me that the chief weakness of the boards of the Overseas Food Corporation and the Development Corporation is that they lack men with two feet on God's good earth. Now are we entering on another colonial land development scheme without that necessary practical experience of dealing with farm problems, either in the tropics or at home? We must be assured that these boards will be competent to deal with the kind of problems likely to arise.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Two observations were made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to which I would like to reply. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the embarrassment that might arise if he had responsibility for running the scheme in Tanganyika when the Colony reached self-government and he looked round the Committee as if he had made a very compelling point. The answer is that the Minister of Food is becoming directly responsible for a large part of the running of the scheme in Queensland, to which, I understand, he nominates the chairman and two-thirds of the board. That is running a scheme not in a Colony which may become self-governing, but in a state which is part of a Dominion, equal in status and in no way inferior in stature to the United Kingdom herself. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman, on that ground, carries no weight at all.
The second argument of the right hon. Gentleman is this: my Department, he says—and we certainly agree, and it is true of all Departments—is not equipped to carry on a great commercial enterprise. I am delighted that that fact is now accepted by a Socialist Secretary of State, and I hope that he will pass it on to his Cabinet colleagues, and especially to the right hon. Gentleman sitting next to him on the Treasury Bench. We do not suggest that the Secretary of State should run this Scheme. If the right hon. Gentleman will look ahead—and I would not be entitled to debate a forthcoming


Amendment—he will see that in Clause 2, page 2, line 38, we are suggesting the machinery whereby the Secretary of State can get rid of the responsibility which he may think is being rather imposed upon him. He can hand it over to the Government of Tanganyika, to the High Commissioner, or to the Colonial Development Corporation, or when a case is proved, as it can no doubt be proved, he can hand some part of the Scheme to private enterprise.
All this would have emerged from an inquiry. Now the inquiry has been refused and we will have to make our inquiries by some other means. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this is not the only reason why we hesitate to entrust Government Departments with the running of commercial schemes. We do not want this burden because we know that in a few months' time we shall be Ministers ourselves.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: The Secretary of State for the Colonies has mentioned the difficulty whch would arise if any of these schemes were handed over in the future to self government. I would ask him to turn his attention to a place which has been handed over to self-government some four year ago—that is India. In India there were railways run by the State, agricultural farms run successfully by the State, experimental agricultural stations and every sort of enterprise, but certainly no industrial companies like cotton or jute. They were always under private enterprise. He should find no difficulty at all, if he inquires what has been done in India, about handing over, from the Government of this country to the Government of India.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I will look into this problem of the future, but, speaking for myself, I have no difficulty at all. I know perfectly well what I want to do when that stage is reached, and that is that these things should not go to private enterprise anywhere but remain as public enterprise in these territories. If that stage is reached, expressing my own view, these matters will be run by public enterprise rather than by the Governments themselves. For the moment I was discussing this question, because the Amendment has the effect that the Overseas Food Corporation will cease to exist. There-

fore, something else will have to take its place, and that is why I spoke of the Colonial Office. Is it suggested that the Colonial Office should take the place of the Corporation? The Colonial Office as at present organised, is not equipped to run a business of this kind, and the second alternative is to hand it over to the C.D.F. I know the difficulty.
This Amendment seeks to lift the latch to open the door on the Amendment to Clause 2, page 2, line 38, which comes later. I do not want to discuss that now, except to make the comment that hon. Members opposite, who have been thundering about delegated legislation in the last five years, now propose, in such an important matter as the passing of a public authority, that the Minister shall be empowered to do it by such a method.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: After an inquiry.

Mr. Griffiths: It is very interesting, having regard to the protests that have been made in the last six years on delegated legislation. Hon. Members opposite propose first to abolish the Board, and then, by a later Amendment, to give the Secretary of State power to transfer its functions. I recommend the Committee to dispose of the first of these Amendments by rejecting it.

Mr. Alport: There is one point I should like to put to the Secretary of State. He has told us that under no circumstances in the future, if the time came to hand over this scheme to somebody else, would he contemplate handing it over to private enterprise.

Mr. Griffiths: That is a personal view.

Mr. Alport: That is the right hon. Gentleman's personal view, but I am sure that he is speaking for the Government and for those who sit on the other side of the Committee. Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to consider handing it over to private enterprise if it were proved beyond doubt, as it might quite well be, that it was impossible to make this Scheme successful under public enterprise? Would he be prepared to continue a scheme of this sort at a loss indefinitely, in spite of the fact that it had been proved by the experience of, say, seven years that unless it was under the control of private enterprise it must be a burden upon the taxpayers of the territories of Tanganyika.

Mr. Griffiths: I am not asking Parliament or the public to commit themselves to anything beyond the annual expenditure approved for this Scheme.

Mr. Alport: I gathered that, but what I am trying to get clear is that, if it is considered that this type of development is in the interests of Africa and the African people, would the right hon. Gentleman's prejudice against private enterprise continue to be directed in relation to this Scheme in spite of the

fact that it was proved that the only way to make it a success was to turn it over to private enterprise? If that is the view of the right hon. Gentleman, it seems to me to be the most blindly ideological view that any Government or Minister could put forward.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 172; Noes, 193.

Division No. 45.]
AYES
[8.15 p.m.


Alport, C. J. M.
Henderson, John (Catheart)
Rayner, Brig. R.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Redmayne, M.


Arbuthnot, John
Higgs, J. M. C.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Robertson, Sir David (Caithness)


Baldwin, A. E.
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Bell, R. M.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Robson-Brown, W.


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Hollis, M. C.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Bevins, J. R. (Liverpool, Toxteth)
Hope, Lord John
Roper, Sir Harold


Birch, Nigel
Hornsby-Smith, Miss P.
Russell, R. S.


Bishop, F. P.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D


Black, C. W.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N,)
Scott, Donald


Bower, Norman
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Boyle, Sir Edward
Hurd, A. R.
Smith, E. Martin (Grantham)


Bracken, Rt. Hon. B.
Hutchinson, Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cmdr. Gurney
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Snadden, W. MoN.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hutchison, Colonel James
Spearman, A. C M.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Burden, Squadron Leader F. A.
Keeling, E. H.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Lambert, Hon. G.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard (N. Fylde)


Channon, H.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Clyde, J. L.
Lindsay, Martin
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Colegate, A.
Linstead, H. N.
Storey, S.


Conant, Maj. R, J. E.
Llewellyn, D.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert (Ilford, S.)
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Craddock, G. B. (Spelthorne)
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Studholme, H. G.


Cranborne, Viscount
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Sutcliffe, H.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.
Taylor, William {Bradford, N.)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Teevan, T. L.


Crouch, R. F.
McKibbin, A.
Thompson, Kenneth Pugh (Walton)


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thorneycroft, Peter (Monmouth)


Cundiff, F. W.
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Deedes, W. F.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Thorp, Brig. R. A. F.


Digby, S. W.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon, Harold (Bromley)
Tilney, John


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Macpherson, Major Niall (Dumfries)
Touche, G. C.


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Maitland, Cmdr. J. W.
Turner, H. F. L.


Drewe, C.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Turton, R. H.


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fisher, Nigel
Maude, Angus (Ealing, S.)
Vosper, D. F.


Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Maudling R.
Wade, D. W.


Fort, R.
Mellor, Sir John
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Foster, John
Molson, A. H. E.
Wakefield, Sir Waved (Marylebone)


Fraser, Sir I. (Morecam[...]e &amp; Lonsdale)
Monokton, Sir Walter
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Gage, C. H.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Gammans, L. D.
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Watkinson, H.


Garner-Evans, E. H. (Denbigh)
Nutting, Anthony
Webbe, Sir Harold


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Oakshott, H. D.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Glyn, Sir Ralph
Odey, G. W.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Granville, Edgar (Eye)
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Wills, G.


Grimond, J.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Grimston, Robert (Westbury)
Osborne, C.
Wood, Hon. R.


Harden, J. R. E.
Perkins, W. R. D.
York, C.


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.



Harris, Reader (Heston)
Pitman, I. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Harvey, Air Codre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Powell, J. Enoch
Colonel Wheatley and


Hay, John
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Mr. Edward Heath.


Heald, Lionel
Raikes, H. V.





NOES


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Padley, W. E.


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Dearne V'lly)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C R.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Awbery, S. S.
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Parker, J.


Ayles, W. H.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Paton, J.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Hamilton, W. W.
Pearson, A.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J
Hannan, W.
Popplewell, E.


Bartley, P.
Hargreaves, A
Porter, G.


Benn, Wedgwood
Harrison, J.
Proctor, W. T.


Benson, G.
Hastings, S.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Bing, G. H. C.
Hayman, F. H.
Rees, Mrs. D.


Blenkinsop, A.
Herbison, Miss M.
Reeves, J.


Blyton, W. R.
Hobson, C. R.
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Boardman, H.
Holman, P.
Richards, R


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Robens, A.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Houghton, D
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Hoy, J.
Robertson, J. J (Berwick)


Brooks, T. J. (Normanton)
Hubbard, T.
Robinson, Kenneth (St Pancras, N.)


Broughton, Dr. A D. D.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)


Brown, George (Belper)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Royle, C.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley


Burke, W. A
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Burton, Miss E
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Simmons, C. J.


Carmichael, J.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Slater, J.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Champion, A. J.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Snow, J W.


Cocks, F. S.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Collick, P.
Keenan, W.
Steele, T.


Collindridge, F.
Kenyon, C.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Cook, T. F.
Kinley, J.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall


Cove, W. G
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Sylvester, G. O.


Crawley, A.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Grossman, R. H. S
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Taylor, Robert (Morpeth)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Thomas. David (Aberdare)


Daines, P.
Lindgren, G. S.
Thomas. George (Cardiff)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Thomas, Iorworth (Rhondda, W)


Darling, George {Hillsborough)
MacColl, J. E.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Davits, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
McInnes, J.
Thurtie, Ernest


Davies, Harold (Leek)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Deer, G.
McLeavy, F.
Vernon, W. F.


Delargy, H. J.
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Wallace, H. W.


Dodds, N. N.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.


Donnelly, D.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersheid, E.)
Weitzman, D.


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W Bromwich)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Dye, S.
Manuel, A. C.
West, D. G.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. (Edinb'gh, E.)


Edwards, W. J (Stepney)
Mathers, Rt. Hon. G.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Mellish, R. J.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W


Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Mitchison, G. R.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland)


Ewart, R.
Monslow, W.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Fernyhough, E.
Moody, A. S.
Williams, David (Neath)


Finch, H. J.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Morley, R.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Follick, M.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'lly)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mort, D. L.
Williams, W. T (Hammersmith, S.)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Moyle, A.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huylon)


Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Murray, J. D.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Gibson, C. W.
Nally, W.
Wise, F. J.


Gilzean, A.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Younger, Hon. K.


Glanville, James (Consett)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.



Gooch, E. G.
Oldfield, W H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Oliver, G. H.
Mr. Bowden and Mr. Sparks.


Grey, C F.
Orbach, M.

The Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): The next Amendment—in page 2, line 29, leave out "subsection (1) of."—has been discussed with the previous one.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I beg to move, in page 2, line 31, to leave out from "being," to as," in line 32, and to insert "more than two."

The Deputy-Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee if the following Amendment were discussed at the same time—in page 2, line 31. leave out "two," and insert "four." They both concern the same point, but there can be separate Divisions, if necessary.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That would certainly be for the convenience of the Oppo-


sition, and, I imagine, of the Government also.
The purpose of the two Amendments is to fix in different ways the composition of the Board of the Corporation. The first Amendment would limit the number of members of the Corporation to two, and the second Amendment would make the minimum number four while, I take it, leaving the maximum number the same.
We are very concerned about the size of the Corporation. Section 4 (1) of the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, laid down the constitution of the Overseas Food Corporation by saying that it
shall consist of a chairman, a deputy chair-man and such number of other members, not being less than four or more than 10, as the Minister of Food may from time to time determine.
In the present Bill there is a slight reduction in the legal maximum level, and Clause 2 (3) reads:
The Overseas Food Corporation shall consist of a chairman and such other members, not being less than two or more than six, as the Secretary of State, may from time to time determine.
By and large, however, the composition of the Board is left broadly the same as before. This is a matter of very great importance.
One of the difficulties in which the Scheme has been landed—indeed, the greatest difficulty—has been reckless extravagance. I do not suggest that there has necessarily been undue extravagance on the individual salaries of the members of the Corporation, many of whom, and not least those who were obliged to leave under the regime of the late Minister of Food, who is the present Secretary of State for War, have done their very best to give signal service to the State in a very difficult capacity. None the less, the great amount of money spent on top-heavy organisation was widely commented upon when the disastrous story of the Groundnuts scheme became generally known.
If a large Corporation was necessary for the first Scheme, it is certainly not necessary now. After all, when the first Scheme was introduced to the country, it was described by Sir Leslie Plummer as being comparable to the opening up of the Middle West of America; and the "Daily Herald" commended the

scheme as the most comprehensive plan in British history. We have our own views on whether those bombastic promises have been fulfilled. In any case, a board of directors which was necessary to carry out a Scheme, believed by its authors to deserve those epithets, is surely not necessary now for the very modest Scheme that is being commended to the Committee. From the White Paper, we understand that the Corporation does not contemplate embarking on any other schemes in East Africa or anywhere else, and it seems to us absurd that provision should be made in the Bill for such a large Corporation.
I therefore ask the Committee to insist that the number of two for the Corporation is quite adequate to deal with the task in hand. It is not the sort of task on which we require a large number of people, nor is it a task on which we need a number of part-time people. This is a definitely limited job, in which two people working all the time with the chairman could certainly provide all the overall direction.
There is this further point. The size of the London staff must be related psychologically to the inevitable reduction in the lesser paid staff both in London and in Africa. A large number of people are being, and will be, dismissed by the Overseas Food Corporation. Many of them have sold their homes in England and have gone to East Africa. They have now to come back or to find other work in Africa. Their future must be of immense concern to this Committee, and we ought to make quite certain, as far as we can, that there is no suggestion that there is to be an unnecessarily top-heavy staff in London for a much reduced scheme while men who have given excellent service in Africa or in London on a lower level of employment are being dismissed.
In this connection, the directors with whose future we are dealing—the members of the Corporation—are, of course, employees of the Corporation in the same sense as the rank and file. I hope we can have some reassuring comments from the Minister of State about the future of the rank and file. That would, I think, be in order on this Amendment. We are concerned about the rank and file employees of the Corporation. If I am not in order in discussing them now, Sir


Charles, another opportunity will arise when we can make our observations, but as we are now dealing with members of the staff, I hope that I should be in order in asking the Minister three queries.
I understand that compensation is to be paid—and this presumably will apply also to the reduced number of directors—costing, I believe, some £400,000, to the people who are losing their jobs as the result of the reduction of the Scheme to more modest proportions. When it was suggested that employees were to receive six months' pay, or four months' pay plus any accrued leave, the general impression was that this did apply both to the African and the London staff, but since it has come to our knowledge that the London staff have no such assurance, and the promise made in this House may have applied only to the staff employed in Africa. We should like to have some information about that.
8.30 p.m.
We should like also to know about the position of people who are today being declared redundant before this Bill is law, because these people are afraid they will get no compensation at all. Those who are anxious about their own future wish to know whether the same provision will apply to them.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think the bon. Member is now going beyond the provissions of the Clause.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am grateful to you, Sir Charles. Indeed I had a lurking suspicion that I was getting out of order and I am grateful to you for allowing me to go so far. Perhaps, without bowing to ministerial eminence, you will give the right hon. Gentleman the same latitude in answering me as you have given me in making these requests. The main burden of our complaint is that a board which was thought necessary for what the "Daily Herald" thought the most comprehensive plan in British history, should be thought necessary for the new organisation.

Mr. John Hynd: I wonder if, in view of the precedent which has been set, I may be permitted to introduce another quite extraneous matter and that the Minister might be given the same latitude in his reply. I refer to the question of the chairman. I

would like to know what is the intention in regard to the appointment of the chairman under this Clause. I would like to know whether the Government have the intention of appointing as chairman someone who has been working on the Scheme over this long experimental period, or whether it is their intention to go outside and appoint a civil servant however high ranking, or some other public person. I think it is most important that when we are considering this matter—

The Deputy-Chairman: I think this would arise on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." We are now considering the numbers of the members, not the chairman. That comes later.

Mr. Dugdate: As two of the matters which have been raised appear to come up later, I think I shall be well advised to keep strictly to your Ruling, Sir Charles, and to reply to both when the occasion arises. Naturally, I do not intend in any way to avoid them.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so quickly. We are deeply concerned about the staff, and it was because I was not sure at which point we could raise this question that I ventured to go so near the bounds of order. I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman could indicate at which point he will be able to make a statement as to the position of the lower-paid staff.

Mr. Dugdale: As far as I understand that would occur when we reach the new Clauses. There is a proposed new Clause in the name of the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank)—[Compensation for loss of office.] I think it would be more suitable to reply when we reach that. Of course, if that Clause is not called, it would be a different matter—

The Deputy-Chairman: I think I might assist the Committee about that. That Clause is to be called.

Mr. Dugdale: It would be more suitable to make a statement then.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) as to the importance of this Scheme not being top heavy. It would be quite fatal


to saddle it with a top-heavy organisation. But I do not think the hon. Gentleman was quite fair in calling this a slight reduction; I think it is a considerable reduction. The size of the Corporation, under the original Act, was to be not less than four and not more than ten. This is to be not less than two and not more than six. That seems to be quite a considerable reduction and it is right that there should be such a reduction. The Scheme is reduced, and the number of those to be in charge of that Scheme will consequently be reduced.
If I may deal with both Amendments together, I would say that they seem to me to tend to cancel each other out to some extent. One of them says that the membership is large and the other says that it is too small. We may, therefore, be correct in considering that we have struck the happy medium between the two extremes. The reason for having four is, first, that there will be two members who are remaining on the Board who will have had previous experience of the working of the Board, and we think that their experience will be invaluable. Second, we wish to add to them a representative of the Tanganyika Government and a representative of the Colonial Development Corporation. I think that Members on all sides of the Committee are agreed that it would be desirable to have those representatives.
We think that four will be the right number, at any rate at present, but we are not necessarily tied to having four permanently. The Bill says that it may be advisable that there should be more. On the other hand, it might be advisable that there should be fewer, but we think that four is the most suitable number at present, having regard to the fact that we want to retain on the Board two existing members, a representative of Tanganyika with local experience and a representative with experience of the Colonial Development Corporation. We wish to have that representation. We do not think it will be in any way top-heavy.
I do not want to score a point, but it is fair to say that there are boards of private companies which have quite as many and more members, and which are performing a rather smaller function than is being performed by this body.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: And are making profits.

Mr. Dugdale: Some make profits, some do not. But I think it is correct to say that there are many private companies much smaller than the Corporation which have many more directors, and no one says that they are top-heavy. It is recognised that it is necessary to have a reasonable number of directors, and I do not think it can be said in any way that this is a large and top-heavy organisation. It is a considerable reduction on the previous one, and I ask the Committee to accept the number as being perfectly reasonable for conducting what is still a relatively large organisation.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: In resisting the Amendment the Minister has indicated that it is the intention of the Government that this organisation shall not be top heavy in future. Could the right hon. Gentleman substantiate that statement to some extent by indicating what are to be the headquarters' expenses, if I may so term them, of this organisation as compared with those of the present set-up? If he were to give us practical examples or practical data of how he proposes to implement the intention not to have the new organisation top-heavy it would be a substantial reinforcement of his argument to us.

Mr. Dugdale: I should be going rather wide of the Amendment if I did what the hon. and learned Member suggests. The Amendment deals with the Board of directors and that is the subject with which we are now concerned. All I am speaking about is whether the Board of directors as such is top-heavy or not. Just as the Board should not be top-heavy so the other central parts of the organisation should also not be top-heavy. In considering the Amendment we are concerned only with the Board.
It is important that the whole body of men working in this new organisation should have the feeling that there is not a top-heavy Board of directors sitting there, weighing down the whole Scheme. I do not think that what is proposed is a top-heavy Board. I cannot see that a directorate of four can possibly be called top-heavy for such a very large organisation as this.

Air Commodore Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman referred to free enterprise, but when a free enterprise company fails, usually the bank


takes over and the board goes. The bank puts in its nominees and the whole company is reorganised from top to bottom. I should have thought this was a case for a clean sweep, and that if continuity was required it would be better to bring home the brightest man we have in Africa. That would give far more confidence to the staff there and at home if he was allowed to use his direction and knowledge.
I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is going nearly far enough. A great amount of public money has been lost and the public is concerned. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) said, we have to give confidence to the staff so that they feel that they are not let down. I would ask him to go much further, to give the whole company a good shake up and to start fresh from the beginning.

Mr. Alport: The Minister mentioned that one of these directors was a representative of the Colonial Development Corporation. I understand that the reason

for that was to ensure that the operations of the Overseas Food Corporation do not overlap or conflict with the operations of the Colonial Development Corporation. If I am right in saying that both these corporations are, in fact, under the responsibility of the Colonial Office surely it is the duty of the Colonial Office to prevent any over-lapping of these two subsidiaries for which they are responsible. Surely the director representing the Colonial Development Corporation becomes unnecessary in these particular circumstances.

Have the Government considered the possibility of associating the East Africa High Commission in any way with this project, because it seems to me that some form of liaison—after all, this is concerned with research—should be maintained between the East Africa High Commission and this new Corporation.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 193: Noes, 162.

Division No. 46.]
AYES
[8.43 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Delargy, H. J.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Alien, Scholefield (Crewe)
Donnelly, D.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Dye, S.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.


Awbery, S. S.
Edwards, W. J (Stepney)
Johnson, James (Rugby)


Ayles, W. H.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Johnston, Douglas (Parsley)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Jones, David (Hartlepool)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Bartley, P.
Ewart, R.
Keenan, W.


Bonn, Wedgwood
Fernyhough, E.
Kenyon, C.


Benson, G.
Finch, H. J.
Kinley, J.


Bing, G. H. C
Foltick, M.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)


Blenkinsop, A.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Blyton, W. R.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Boardman, H.
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)


Bowden, H. W.
George, Lady Megan Lloyd
Lewis, Arthur {West Ham, N.)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Gibson, C. W.
Lindgren, G S.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Gilzean, A.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Glanville, James (Consett
McInnes, J.


Brooks, T. J. (Normanton)
Gooch, E. G.
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Granville, Edgar (Eye)
McLeavy, F


Brown, George (Belper)
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)


Brown, Thomas Once)
Grey, C. F.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Burke, W. A
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Malialieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E)


Burton, Miss E.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon James (Llanelly)
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Grimond, J.
Manuel, A. C.


Carmichael, J.
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Mathers, Rt. Hon. G.


Champion, A. J.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Mellish, R. J.


Cocks, F. S.
Hamilton, W. W
Middleton, Mrs. L.


Collick, P.
Harman, W.
Milchison, G. R.


Collindridge, F.
Hargreaves, A
Monslow, W.


Cook, T. F.
Harrison, J.
Moody, A. S.


Cove, W. G
Hastings, S.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hayman, F. H.
Morley, R.


Crawley, A.
Herbison, Miss M.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hobson, C. R.
Mort, D. L.


Daines, P.
Holman, P.
Moyle, A.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Holmes, Horace (Hemsworch)
Murray, J. D.


Darting, George (Hillsborough)
Houghton, D.
Nally, W.


Dairies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Hoy, J.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hubbard, T.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.


Deer, G.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Oldfield W. H.




Oliver, G. H.
Royle, C.
Wallace, H. W.


Orbach, M.
Shawcross, Rt Hon. Sir Hartley
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Padley, W. E.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Weitzman, D.


Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Dearne V'lly)
Simmons, C J
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Slater, J
West, D. G.


Pannell, T. C.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. (Edinb'gh, E.)


Parker, J.
Snow, J. W.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Palon, J.
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Popplewell, E.
Steele, T.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W


Porter, G.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland)


Proctor, W. T.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Sylvester, G. O.
Williams, David (Neath)


Rees, Mrs. D.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Reeves, J.
Taylor, Robert (Morpeth)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Thomas, David (Aberdare)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'lly)


Richards, R.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Robens, A.
Thomas, lorworth (Rhondda, W.)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Thurtle, Ernest
Wise, F. J.


Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.
Younger, Hon. K.


Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Vernon, W. F.



Ross, William (Kilmarnock)
Wade, D. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Pearson and Mr. Sparks




NOES


Alport, C. J. M.
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Raikes, H. V.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Higgs, J. M. C.
Rayner, Brig. R.


Arbuthnot, John
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Redmayne, M.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Robertson, Sir David (Caithness)


Baldwin, A. E.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S)


Bell, R. M.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Robson-Brown, W


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Hollis, M. C.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Bevins, J. R. (Liverpool, Toxteth)
Hope, Lord John
Roper, Sir Harold


Birch, Nigel
Hornsby-Smith, Miss P.
Russell, R. S.


Bishop, F. P.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D


Black, C. W.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lawisham, N,.)
Scott, Donald


Bossom, A. C
Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Bower, Norman
Hurd, A. R.
Smith, E. Martin (Grantham)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Hutchison, Ll.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cmdr. Gurney
Hutchison, Colonel James
Snadden, W. McN.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Jones, A. (Halt Green)
Spearman, A. C M.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Keeling, E. H.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Burden, Squadron Leader F. A.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard (N. Fylde)


Channon, H,
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Lindsay, Martin
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Clyde, J L
Linstead, H. N.
Storey, S.


Colcgate. A.
Llewellyn, D.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Craddock, G. B. (Spelthorne)
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Studholme, H. G.


Cranborne, Viscount
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Sulcliffe, H.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
McCorquodafe, Rt. Hon. M. S.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Teevan, T. L.


Crouch, R. F.
McKibbin, A.
Thompson, Kenneth Pugh (Walton)


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Thorneycroft, Peter (Monmouth)


Cundiff, F. W.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Deedes, W. F.
Macmillan, Rt Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Thorp, Brig. R. A. F.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Macpherson, Major Niall (Dumfries)
Tilney, John


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Maitland, Cmdr. J. W
Touche, G. C.


Drewe, C.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Turner, H. F. L.


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Turton, R. H.


Fisher, Nigel
Marshall, Sidney (Sullen)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
Maudling R.
Vosper, D. F.


Fort, R.
Mellor, Sir John
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Foster, John
Molson, A. H. E.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Fraser, Sir I. (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Monckton, Sir Walter
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Gage, C. H.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S.(Cirencester)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Gammans, L. D.
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Watkinson, H.


Garner-Evans, E. H. (Denbigh)
Nutting, Anthony
Webbe, Sir Harold


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Oakshott, H. D.
Wheatley, Major M. J. (Poole)


Grimston, Robert (Westbury)
Odey, G. W.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Harden, J. R. E.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Wills, G.


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Osborne, C.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Harvey, Air Codre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Perkins, W. R. D.
Wood, Hon. R.


Hay, John
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
York, C.


Heald, Lionel
Powell, J. Enoch



Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Digby and Mr. Edward Heath.

Mr. Gammans: I beg to move, in page 2, line 38, at the end, to add:
(5) The Secretary of State shall make regulations for ascertaining, verifying and recording particulars (whether relating to subject matter, value, ownership or other matters) of the assets, property, rights and liabilities of the Overseas Food Corporation.
The purpose of this Amendment is quite clear. We would have wished to have a clean break with the past, and that, whatever activities are now carried on in East Africa, there should be a new start. However, that has not been found possible, but surely we must insist upon some sort of record of the assets, so that we shall know exactly what is being handed over to the new enterprise, and so that the taxpayer shall know exactly what sum of money should be written off.
I think the only way in which we should regard this Committee tonight is that we are, in fact, a meeting of shareholders of a bankrupt concern. It is a meeting of shareholders who do not hope to get even a farthing in the pound. The general manager has been sacked, the chairman has done a flit and a new chairman has been appointed. I am not blaming the right hon. Gentleman for what has happened in the past, but in his own interests, apart from the interests of the taxpayer, he surely ought to know exactly what he expects to take over.
The Committee must not mind if we on this side are a little suspicious of this business. I think the shareholders have every right to be suspicious, because there are one or two figures here which we do not quite understand. During the Second Reading debate, the Minister of Food said that the amount which had been advanced already was £35½ million, excluding the money advanced to the Corporation and loaned to the East African Railways, and also excluding £1,500,000 which had been advanced to the Food Corporation in Queensland. At the same time, we are asked to write off £36½ million, but that does not add up.
Are we to understand that there is nothing whatever in East Africa left from this gigantic "fizzle" which is of any worth whatever? Are we to understand that the railways, harbours, movable assets like trucks and machinery, are worth nothing at all, because if the new body, or the Corporation in its new guise, is going to take over these assets,

surely that fact ought to be known; otherwise, they will be starting with hidden assets. I should be very surprised if there were not several million pounds' worth of assets to be taken over. Surely, that should be known, so that the new Corporation, or the Corporation in its new guise, should be properly capitalised, and should not be unfairly capitalised to the detriment of the taxpayer.
There is also this business of unavoidable commitments of about £4,500,000. I suggest that that is a tidy sum to be covered by the description "unavoidable commitments." What are these commitments? We have not been given any idea of what they comprise, whether they are contracts in respect of service, or contracts in respect of work to be done. We suggest, therefore, that there is only one way in which the new Corporation can take over. It is only fair to the right hon. Gentleman, in taking over this bankrupt concern, that he should know exactly what, in fact, he is taking over, and it is for that reason that we should like to give him, not only the power, but the obligation to
make regulations for ascertaining, verifying and recording particulars…of the assets, property, rights and liabilities of the Overseas Food Corporation.
We think he should do that, and that, when he has done it, the figures should be placed in front of this House. For heaven's sake let us be businesslike at some stage in this concern; in winding it up, let us at least know what are the assets, and what, in fact, the new Corporation is taking over.

Sir Peter Macdonald: I wish to support the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) in his plea that some order should be introduced in ascertaining the assets of the bankrupt organisation which we are liquidating tonight, and also that we should know what the assets of the new Corporation are to be. I have always been one of those who advocated the banding over of this Corporation to the Colonial Office, though I realise that it is only a question of changing donkeys when crossing the stream. But we have got to cross the stream somehow, and up to now we have had no indication from the Government as to how we are to get across, or how we are going to dispose of the assets of the old Corporation.
I am rather concerned about this matter, because I know that there must be considerable assets of the old Corporation, even today. We want to know where they have gone. I happened to be in Africa about a month ago, and I heard some very surprising stories there. I was not in Kongwa; I kept away from there because I knew the wails and howls I should hear from the people who had been greatly let down over the scheme. But I went as far afield as Kenya and Central Africa.
Among the things I heard was the rather surprising way in which the assets of the old Corporation were being disposed of. It appears that the equipment, and so forth, had been sold off in lots by auction, and the complaint was made by people who genuinely wanted some of that equipment for their farms, that they were not told in time when the sales were taking place. The result was that some people who camped on the site until the sales took place snaffled up the equipment at knock-out prices and sold it overnight at an enormous profit. The people who were genuinely in need of such equipment regarded it as a scandal that only 48 hours' notice was given before the sales took place. We have all heard about the sale of thousands of bottles of gin, whisky and other assets. [An HON. MEMBER: "Liquid assets."] Therefore, I think it is frightfully important that these things should be cleared up and that this Committee should be told what, if anything at all, is in the Minister's mind about how he is going to dispose of these assets.
9.0 p.m.
It is very vital that British prestige should be maintained, even if there is not much prestige left for this British Government in East Africa today. One has only to go out and hear what the people there have to say about this Government—people on all sides and of all colours and creeds. They are all having a great laugh about this scheme, although it is nothing for the British taxpayer to laugh at. The Africans are laughing at it and so are even the monkeys in the trees. As far as I can see, the monkeys are the only ones who have anything to laugh about, because they are the only ones who will benefit. The few nuts there have been, the monkeys have got. [Laughter.] I am very serious about this.
It is very important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey said, that we should tidy up this funeral and try to see that something is saved from the mess. I hope that somebody will tell us tonight by what manner and method it is intended to ascertain the assets of the old company and, having ascertained them, what is going to be done with them. It is only fair to the British taxpayer that, if anything is left over, it should be disposed of in a fair and orderly manner and the proceeds paid to the British Exchequer. Is that going to be done or not? Nobody has told us.
We have been told that a great proportion of the equipment was promised to the Tanganyika Government. Do the Tanganyika Government want it? Are they going to have the pick of it, and in what manner is it going to be disposed of? I have a fear—and I have seen this happen before with Government disposal —of very valuable equipment being allowed to lie in the sun and rot for years. I have seen it in Nigeria and other places not long ago. Transport worth millions of pounds was allowed to lie out in the sun until it was practically falling to pieces. That is a thing we must avoid in this case, and I hope the Minister will tell us in what manner he proposes to deal with what assets remain of this bankrupt organisation.

Captain Duncan: I was not in the last Parliament and, therefore, I was not able to intervene in the long debates that took place on groundnuts. This is my first attempt at discussing this bankrupt organisation which I find on my return. Here is an opportunity for Parliament to regain the control it lost over the Overseas Food Corporation, because in this Bill and with this Amendment it might be possible not to lose all, or at any rate to lose less; of the £6 million than the Government have succeeded in losing of the £36 million.
It seems very unfair to start the new book with an unlimited liability that might appear after examination of the accounts in the old book. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans), asked about hidden assets. I am much more frightened of hidden liabilities. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir P. Macdonald) talked about things being sold at a very heavy depreciation to anybody who came


along. Has adequate depreciation been set against those sales in the accounts? We do not know. On pages 16 and 17 of the White Paper certain sums for depreciation are set out. We have no idea whether they are enough or not. Therefore, I think it is most unfair to the new Board that is to take over the continuation of this business to be saddled with undisclosed accounts of the old bankrupt board.
There is one other point to be mentioned in connection with this Amendment. It would help Parliament in the future to see that the £6 million which is to be spent will be spent in the best way; and it will do one other thing: it will bring much more prominently to the attention of all concerned, including His Majesty's Government, the importance of keeping proper accounts.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I strongly support the Amendment. When the Colonial Office take over this Corporation on April Fool's day they will know exactly what they are taking on. I feel that the Colonial Office should look very carefully into the suggestions which have been made that the disposal of surplus plant, machinery and assets belonging to the British taxpayer may not have been carried out as satisfactorily as all of us would have wished. I have had my attention drawn to an instance where some plant was disposed of by private tender. It eventually went to some Indians, and in a very short time it was sold by those Indians by public tender at a profit in the region of £4,000. I feel that this matter has been skated over far too lightly, although many of us have tried very hard to ascertain the truth of the rumours of scandal that have gone on, on this issue in particular.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Can the hon. Gentleman say how much was involved in the transaction when the profit of £4,000 was made?

Mr. Harris: I cannot say exactly, but I think it was in the region of £10,000. I am only instancing a point that has been brought to my notice and which I think is worthy of some serious consideration. If the Government would invite suggestions from people in East Africa who know something of what has been going on, they would very quickly be furnished

with some definite information which might be worthy of serious consideration.
My hon. Friend, in moving this Amendment, has done a great service to all concerned, including the people of this country. At this stage we should call a halt and ascertain whether everyone is satisfied with the general disposal of assets which must continue for a long time. It is common knowledge that the buying has been utterly fantastic. Mention was made humorously, although it is apparently quite true, of one issue alone—pink gin—of which apparently there is 75 years' stock. It might be useful for some members of His Majesty's Government to look into this situation.
I suggest that the buying has gone astray—I do not think many hon. Members would attempt to deny it—and that, as a result, there are vast stocks to be disposed of in East Africa. Many of us have seen this plant and these assets deteriorating terribly in East Africa, either at the docks or on the site, because it has not been possible to use much of it. I think there is a fair excuse for much of that, because as the scheme broke down many of the original purchases came forward and many of these assets became redundant. The point is, having become redundant, what is happening to them? This is what my hon. Friend is trying very hard to ascertain.
I strongly support the plea that action should be taken by the Colonial Office to ascertain the assets which the new authority will have to take over from 1st April. It would not be out of place to make the most thorough investigation on the spot about the disposal of materials. Until the Colonial Office are fully satisfied that the disposal is proceeding in accordance with what they themselves would desire, I suggest that all such disposal of assets should temporarily be stopped. Then the Colonial Office will know exactly where they stand and we can start entirely afresh, to the satisfaction of the people of the Colony itself, who will know that the Colonial Office have this matter properly in hand. The Colonial Office could consult the local administration to see whether they would like any of these assets. It may probably be that in present circumstances much of the assets could beneficially be returned to this country.
This Amendment is very important and I hope it will be so regarded by the Government. Much lies behind it. Without going into a great deal of detail, I suggest that it would not take long for the Colonial Office to be satisfied that these unfortunate happenings have been taking place. It is as well that we should know where we stand and should know that any scandal which might have arisen in the past will be avoided in the future.

Mr. Dugdale: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervene now, not to stop the discussion but to clear up one or two matters. We on this side of the Committee are just as anxious as hon. Members opposite are to see that we have a full account, so that we know exactly what we are taking over—assets, liabilities or anything else. It is essential that we should have such an account.
The reason why we cannot accept the Amendment is that we think it is unnecessary. In the first place, the Secretary of State can already obtain any of this information under Section 9 (4) of the Act, which reads:
The Corporation shall furnish to the responsible Minister such information and returns relating to the property or activities or proposed activities of the Corporation or of others by whom activities are carried on or are proposed to be carried on with their assistance or in association with them…as the responsible Minister may from time to time require, and shall afford to him facilities for the verification of information furnished by them in such manner and at such times as he may require.
That gives all the powers necessary.
In the second place, all the assets of the Corporation have already been recorded and valued in detail on the basis described in the last two annual reports and audited balance sheets of the Corporation. I refer hon. Members to those reports so that they can see for themselves that that is so.
Control of capital assets is retained by the Secretary of State, under Section 10. and the Corporation maintains a register of fixed assets and an inventory of furniture. Whether that inventory contains all that the hon. Member for Croydon. North (Mr. Frederic Harris), would like —including the liquid assets—I am not quite certain. I am sorry to hear that

there is a possibility that pink gin may deteriorate. I thought pink gin was made on the spot at a given time, but if there is a large supply of pink gin, I hope it will not deteriorate, and I do not think it is likely to deteriorate.
I should like to mention one point raised by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir P. Macdonald), who was concerned about the disposal of equipment and thought that opportunities might be missed by the Government of Tanganyika and by other East African Governments who might not take full advantage of this disposal. I can assure him that we have had this matter very much in mind and that both the Government of Tanganyika and the East African High Commission are fully acquainted with the position and are examining it to see what assets may be of use to them, so that nothing of value will be lost.

9.15 p.m.

Sir P. Macdonald: Will a complete inventory be made before any disposals take place, because there has not been a complete inventory of lots sold off?

Mr. Ellis Smith: There was an allegation that there was £4,000 profit made upon a £10,000 sale.

Mr. Dugdale: An inventory will be made of any assets there are; considerable inventories will be made. It is obviously necessary that there should be an inventory, and an inventory will be made of those assets which are not disposed of, because it is necessary to have an inventory to discover what the assets are before one can dispose of them. That seems to be a reasonable assumption.
However, I think that the main point which really will satisfy hon. Members is that there will be an account duly audited up to 31st March—that is, up to the last day before the change over occurs. That account will appear, and will be published—a duly audited account—and hon. Members can then examine it and see whether it gives all the information they desire. There will be such an account. There have been accounts in the past, and there will be a final account before the change over. That being so, I cannot see that it is necessary to have any other powers to audit or to consider any further accounts.

Mr. Gammans: In this account, who will do the valuation? Everything depends upon that. Will it be the same body that is now running the show or will it be an outside body? If it is an outside body, then, I admit, the right hon. Gentleman will have gone a very long way towards satisfying us.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: May I ask another question on the same point? In this White Paper, in page 12, there is an item of estimated net credits for utilisation and sale of surplus stores and equipment. Who arrived at that figure? Was that arrived at independently? Is there ground for believing that any independent check has been made, so that we can be quite certain that the new undertaking is going to take over something that somebody has valued in a proper manner?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I wish that the Minister of State had been more reasonable. I can assure him that there is nothing sinister in this Amendment. We are on the verge of a new venture. It does not look as if it is going to take the form we should have liked, but it is a new venture, and if this Bill becomes law we shall give it loyal support, and we shall hope for its success. We do not think this is the right way to do it, but if it is to be done this way, through the Government's temporary majority, then there is nothing that we can do about that at this moment, and we want it to succeed. It will best succeed if it starts with clear public appreciation of what its assets and liabilities are, and it surely would be immensely to the advantage of the Government if this appreciation were to be independently arrived at.
The right hon. Gentleman quoted the Act of 1948, with which many of us are familiar, and he quoted from Section 10, but that Section deals with the disposal of the capital assets: it does not deal with valuation. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman meant to refer to Section 9 (4), under which
The Corporation shall furnish to the responsible Minister such information…as the responsible Minister may from time to time require…
Both by Section 9 and Section 10 the Minister may ask for information, but he is not obliged to do so. It is the word "may" I would stress in that sub-section. He is not obliged to do so.

We want to make that mandatory, and, surely, that is not unreasonable.
After all, the scandals that have happened—and that is not too strong a word to use—the monstrous waste of £36½ million of public money at this moment of all others in our history—this scandalous affair—has occurred despite the protection of Sections 9 and 10 of the Act of 1948, which have always been there, had they been of any use. The stories that we are now unearthing bit by bit from the Government have happened in a situation protected by Sections 9 and 10 of the Act of three years ago. These are really valueless protections; we want to carry it a great deal further and to get more protection, and that is the point behind our Amendment.
I said that it would be to the advantage of His Majesty's Government that this information should be known. We are, after all, more concerned with the taxpayers—for all of us in this Committee ought to speak for the taxpayers, who cover every section of the community —than we are with the fortunes of this particular Government. None the less, it is, or should be, to the advantage of the Government for this appreciation to be arrived. The hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) made a long speech on Second Reading, in which he used phrases like this:
we have laid down the harbours, railways, roads, towns and hospitals.
He also said, a little later:
The £36,500,000 represents in great part solid assets which are now established in East Africa.
He also said that this £36½ million is
calculated to revolutionise world food production."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February. 1951; Vol. 484, c. 1157–8.]
I fear that the last assumption is not correct, but it might be correct that the £36½ million in great part represents solid assets which are now established in East Africa. We do not think that is true. But if it is true it might go some way to meet the criticisms of the Government scheme, and we want to know it. That is why we want an independent inquiry.

Mr. J. Hynd: The hon. Gentleman quotes me as saying "in great part." He surely recognises it is true that there are these railways, harbours, towns and hospitals, so that in great part it is true.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by a great part of the £36½1 million. Would he say that £20 million was a great part?

Mr. Hynd: I would.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Then if an independent inquiry elicited the fact that there were solid assets worth £20 million in East Africa, what a wonderful answer for the hon. Gentleman to give at the forthcoming election to people who call out "Groundnuts" at him and say that he has wasted £36½ million. If he can turn to his interrupters—and they will be legion; far more hecklers than groundnuts—and say "On the contrary. An independent inquiry has now shown us that we have £20 million of solid assets in East Africa." What a wonderful answer that would be. It would not necessarily matter if the assets were in the wrong part of Africa, if the hospitals were somewhere where there are no Africans, or will not be soon; he would not worry about a detail of that kind: they would be solid assets. More seriously, it would be to everybody's advantage to know how much of this money does represent solid assets. So much for the assets part of our Amendment.
We are concerned also with the rumours of these swift sudden sales. I must confess that we have no proof about this, but rumours are floating round and they ought to be nailed and answered. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir P. Macdonald), has mentioned that in the groundnut area there are already sales going on of which very little notice has been given so that people from a wide area, anxious to buy, have not had the opportunity of getting there. I hope we shall have some information about that, because it is a matter of great importance, and if it turns out to be an unfair charge we shall be quite delighted.
The last part of what I want to say relates to liabilities. The two Cabinet Ministers present seem to be so busy getting advice that I am afraid neither will have heard what I was saying. I was about to deal with something more near the interest of Ministers than assets, and that is liabilities; they know more about liabilities than they do about assets. We want to know what the liabilities are. We have had the most extraordinary confusion on this matter. Paragraph 17 of

the White Paper tells us that it would be as expensive to wind up the scheme altogether as to carry it on under these new proposals. If that is true it is a very good argument indeed, but we have had no proof whatever that it is true.
The Minister of Food, on 20th February, said:
—the Corporation calculated that the heavy liabilities they would have had to meet for breach of contracts and other unavoidable commitments would have been about f4,500,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1951; Vol. 484, c. 1089.]
We were very surprised at this, and we asked the right hon. Gentleman if he would tell us how that could possibly be true. We knew that £400,000 was put on one side for compensation for loss of office, and we hope that will go to the lower paid people as well, and not entirely to some of those responsible for the difficulties which have arisen. We hope that will be so. But £400,000 is a long way off £4½ million.
What did the right hon. Gentleman say when he came to give the detailed explanation which we wanted. He said:
If we were to abandon the Scheme now, the sum of £4,500,000 would have to he spent in paying compensation for broken contracts of employees.
There was a gasp of incredulity in the House, as anyone who was present will well remember. We had read the proposals carefully, and we knew that the sum was really £400,000. The Minister had multiplied it ten times and made it £4,500,000. He realised that that was not quite right and went on to say:
If it were to be abandoned, I presume that hon. Members opposite would want us to pay compensation for supply contracts that would then he broken "—
That is another possible sum—
and there would be the cost of liquidating the assets and the paying of compensation to the contractors. All those together, if we were to abandon the Scheme would cost £4,500,000, from the best estimate that is available."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1951; Vol. 484, c. 1200.]
If the Government have got the best estimate they ought to let us have it. There is the feeling that because they are so deeply involved in contracts carelessly entered into they are paying good money after bad and asking the Committee to condone the practice. If they have an answer, an independent inquiry will show it. That inquiry has been turned down. We content ourselves with


a more modest request and that is that there should be an independent valuation of the liability, so that we shall know where we stand, because it appears to us inconceivable that a sum approaching £4½ million is necessary for broken contracts and things of that kind on a scheme, the total cost of which is expected to be only £6 million. It is because of these facts that we feel very strongly indeed about this Amendment.

Mr. Dugdale: I hesitate to intervene again, but I do so in order to give a reply to the last point raised by the hon. Gentleman, which, I think, was also raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans). He was concerned with the question of the cost of possible closing down. The figures were, in fact £4½ million: Payments to staff, compensation, the salary of staff awaiting passage, and the cost of passage to the United Kingdom, £1,650,000; cost of liquidation of stores, £1½ million; compensation for breaking up of commercial contracts, £1,400,000—a total of approximately £41 million, excluding the railway.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: What does "payments to staff" mean? How many months' payment in lieu of notice does that represent?

Mr. Frederic Harris: What is meant by "cost of liquidation of stores"?

Mr. Dugdale: It must cost something. One cannot say "Hey presto" and it all goes like that.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Further to that point. The intention to abandon the scheme, modify it and bring it forward in this form has only recently been arrived at. When an hon. Member suggested that there had been hasty sales in East Africa, the right hon. Gentleman looked very indignant. If there had not been sales how does the right hon. Gentleman know that he is going to lose £1½ million on sales? How does he arrive at the figure of £1½ million? Cannot he even make the sale of stores pay, or are the Government already losing from the sort of sales to which we have drawn attention?

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Dugdale: No, Sir, I did not laugh at the idea of there having been sales. Of course, there have been sales, and

some of them have been successful and some not so successful. What I did rise to say was that I think the Committee on all sides are agreed as to what we want to do. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, we are agreed. We want to have a proper account of the position, and be absolutely certain what the position is when the Corporation passes from the Ministry of Food to the Colonial Office. We want to have no doubt about it and we want everybody to know, including Parliament and people. That is what we want, and I take it that that is what the Opposition want. If they do not, that is another matter.
We are satisfied that we have enough powers to be able to ascertain all these facts and to make them public. We are determined to use those powers. We will look at this matter again before the Report stage, and if we find that the Opposition are right and that we have not sufficient powers we will make the necessary alterations to ensure that we have those powers. That is what I mean when I say that our aims are the same. We think we have the powers; if we find the Opposition are right, we will have the matter attended to.

Mr. Gammans: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the extraordinary principle that he is enunciating? It is the principle that the bankrupt should be allowed to value his own assets and then go on using them. Why should he rejoice in claiming a lower standard of morality for public affairs upon the spending of public money than any Government would tolerate in a private individual?

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Government have not used any of these powers? Here are the figures we have been given, and if these powers have not been exercised, how do the Government know that they are adequate?

Mr. Dugdale: I have not suggested that the Government have not used them, but I am rather inclined to the view that the Opposition are not using the knowledge vouchsafed to them in this Report and which will be vouchsafed to them on 31st March when the final Report is published. Then the Government and the Opposition can see what the position is.

Air Commodore Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman has said that he is satisfied that the Government have sufficient


powers. We on this side of the Committee are not satisfied that the Government are using any powers. We have no confidence in this Government any longer. We do not want an assurance on the Report stage; we want the assurance tonight. What have the Government got to lose on this Amendment? Absolutely nothing, for it ensures that the new set-up starts off with a clean sheet.
I am far from satisfied with the way in which this equipment is being disposed of. The right hon. Gentleman referred to equipment being sold in Africa. It may be that other Colonial Governments would like some of the equipment, and are even prepared to pay more for it. The public have invested and lost £36½ million, and I have always understood in my short Parliamentary career that our first duty was to take care of the taxpayers' money. While I am very willing to help other Colonial Governments in Africa, I say let us have some charity at home in these hard-pressed days in Britain, and if we can get more for this equipment in Malaya and Pakistan, let us do so.
Will the right hon. Gentleman give us a proper assurance that this equipment will be advertised in the whole Commonwealth? Do not be in a hurry to get rid of it. Prices are rising, and, unfortunately, we are in an inflationary period. On stocks which amount to something like £1½ million, a very big profit can be made by waiting a few months. Is it true—I am only passing on what I am told—that compensation amounting to £50,000 has got to be paid to a firm for fertilisers? I do not know that that is true—it may not be—but whether it is free enterprise or not, it is still the taxpayers' money. I earnestly suggest to the Government that they bring in an outside firm, very experienced in carrying out valuation, so that the new set-up starts on a proper basis with equipment valued by an independent body.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) said that for the Corporation themselves to value their own equipment is quite irregular. My memory goes back two or three years ago when the auditors, for some reason or other, refused to sign the balance sheet. I am not satisfied with this. There will be great difficulty in getting the accounts to put before the House; we shall have to wait a very long time for them, and when

that happens it will be the party on this side who are in power.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: If the figures that have been put to us rang true or sounded sensible, we might be prepared to consider sympathetically what the Minister has just said. He told us that the estimated cost of disposing of such stores as are to be disposed of was £1½ million. That is a very extraordinary figure. Would the Minister say that 10 per cent. of the proceeds of sale was a reasonable figure for the costs of selling? If the percentage is, in fact, 10 per cent., it means that the right hon. Gentleman is selling £15 million worth of stores. If it were 5 per cent., the total would be £30 million. What is the total amount of stores that is to be sold, the cost of selling which is to be £1½ million? It must, clearly, be an enormous amount of stores. I do not believe that there is that enormous amount of stores to be disposed of at all, but if there is, surely the Committee ought to be told. We cannot accept an amazing figure of this kind without further explanation.

Mr. W. Fletcher: I am very puzzled by this £1½ million loss on the disposal of stores and I think that we ought to know a little more about where, and of what type, they are. If in the middle of Africa a person aims a bulldozer at a groundnut and misses, he will have to pay very heavily for his bad shot, because nobody wants to buy a derelict bulldozer 50 miles from a railway. The price which one will get for it is governed by the cost of transport to some place where it can really be of use. Anyone who, on the other hand, had a few cases of gin, pink or even red or blue, fairly near a large town in Africa which might be short of drink, would get a particularly good price and make a profit. But a loss of £1½ million on stores—using one word to cover them—is in itself a measure of the lack of grasp by the Government of what this problem is.
Harbours, ports and railways which are built in a tropical country deteriorate at an appalling rate if they are not used every day. The Minister referred to our having seen a great many figures in the last two balance sheets, which occurred at an interval of about 12 months, but the rate of deterioration of stores and equipment which are not used for 12 months can be something appalling. That


is offset to some extent by the rise in price of practically every sort of stores throughout the world.
I should feel very much more satisfied and think that the Minister was being more reasonable if he would say, not only that a figure was to be put before us on 31st March, but that he was going to use these permissive powers which he has by saying, "The first time I use them will be by appointing here and now—" or within a month from now, or within a week if necessary—" an independent valuer." That, surely, must be for his own assistance and satisfaction.
The picture which I have tried to draw, of the vast variation that there must be under this one heading of stores may open in the Minister's mind a slightly new vista. Small stores can be shipped for disposal in a great many places. It is, therefore, common sense—but it may be alien to the ideas of the right hon. Gentleman of the way to do things—to protect himself, the taxpayer and everybody else by bringing in any well-known outside firm of valuers, or appointing a special valuer, quite independent, to give the House and everyone else a breakdown of the whole of this stores question and all the other losses which have been incurred. Then he could come to us and say, "I have been reasonable; I have used my permissive powers in the right way"—and we on this side of the Committee would then be pretty nearly satisfied.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. F. Willey): Of course, the Minister of Food is at present responsible and it might help the Committee if I gave a little detail about the present arrangements regarding the disposal of surplus stores. Before I do that, I should make clear to the Committee that all the assets of the Corporation have already been recorded and valued in detail and that information can be obtained from the Annual Reports. Messrs. Cooper Brothers were the auditors. It was as a result of the comments of Messrs. Cooper Brothers that the Public Accounts Committee paid a good deal of attention to this, and the whole issue was very largely a question of storekeeping, which is relevant to the issue of assets that we are discussing. Inquiry has been made from time to time as to what inventory the Corporation

have. The answer is that the Corporation have a fairly satisfactory inventory at the moment.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: rose—

Mr. Willey: I will give way in a moment. At present the Corporation are disposing of surplus stores. If this Bill is approved by Parliament, the Corporation will have further surplus stores to dispose of, but this disposal will not be a new problem; it is being dealt with now. The bulk of stores which are surplus at the moment, and will in the future become surplus, are in East Africa. The Board have made arrangements in East Africa that the bulk of these surplus stores will be disposed of through the agency of the East African Stores Disposal Board. That Board is an official body reporting to the Economic Secretary and through him to the Administrator of the East African High Commission. The Board of the Corporation has representatives on it from the East African Governments and from commercial interests. That is the body which is dealing with the surplus stores which the Committee has been discussing.
In order to dispose of the stores to the best advantage of the Corporation, this disposals board has an office at Dar-es-Salaam to handle O.F.C. surplus stores. Through this office very close contact is maintained with the East African Governments and with all the main commercial interests. Lists of stores being disposed of are notified, first to the East African Governments, then to the Dar-es-Salaam Chamber of Commerce and then to the accredited East African agents of the various types of equipment being disposed of. I cannot for the life of me see why the Committee should be so ignorant of this, because the Board could do little more to make the stores being disposed of more widely known in the proper quarters.
As well as this, a comprehensive monthly catalogue is prepared and, in addition to being circulated to the bodies I have mentioned, it is sent to all firms and organisations making major commercial inquiries. Over and above these steps in East Africa the London office of the Board supplies information to East Africa of market conditions and arranges contact from this country with the people in East Africa. In addition, the London office is in the closest touch with the


Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Works and the Board of Trade.
9.45 p.m.
The disposal of surplus equipment and stores in the United Kingdom is carried out by the London office, which again consults with the appropriate Government Departments, and also takes all the steps that it can to keep those who may be interested in the stores being disposed of fully informed. I hope that the statement which this discussion has given me the opportunity of making will help the Board to ensure that this information is widely known in those quarters which are interested in the stores which are being disposed of.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: Would the Parliamentary Secretary clear up one important point? He has told us the name of the auditors and no one would dream of questioning their integrity. But by whom have these stores and assets been valued? The auditors do not normally carry out the valuation. By whom and by what body have the stores and assets been valued? How does the hon. Member know that they are worth £1,500,000?

Mr. Ellis Smith: The Parliamentary Secretary made a clear statement and I hesitated to intervene in the course of it. Will he inform us who are the chief commercial interests?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: While the Parliamentary Secretary is thinking that one out or finding out the answer, I would say that it would have helped us and saved the Government some time had he given us that answer earlier in the discussion. At the beginning of the debate on this Amendment there was talk of there being nothing sinister, but as time went on I thought I began to hear the bucket rattling in the Government bucket shop. I think that Members of the Government have not taken sufficiently seriously this loss of £36,500,000. The Minister of Agriculture came in for a minute or two but he could not bear thinking of the £36,500,000 of fertilisers, machinery, etc., which have largely disappeared out there. I represent an agricultural constituency and my constituents take this matter very seriously. They want to know what we are doing to ensure that there is proper accounting. Had such accounting as this gone on in private enterprise, proceedings would not

have ended solely in Carey Street. I should like to put it to the Minister—

Mr. Hoy: When the hon. Member makes that criticism of the accounting, is he criticising the firm of accountants which dealt with the accounts of the Overseas Food Corporation?

Mr. Dodds-Parker: It is the valuation of these stores that we are talking about. We want to see an independent valuation.

Mr. Hoy: But did not the hon. Gentleman say "accounting"? I wondered whether he was casting some doubt on the firm of auditors responsible for the accounting.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Of course not. What we want to press—and will go on pressing on the Government, I hope—is that there must be an exact accounting in the way we suggest. I cannot see that the Government stand to lose anything by accepting the Amendment. If the Government do not want the powers, they need not use them. This is only the first instance in which we in the House are to be called upon to go through these, as it were, bankruptcy proceedings, and we must get the situation clear so that we shall know what we are trying to do. I cannot see that the Government will suffer in any way by accepting the Amendment.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The Amendment seeks to give us powers to do something by regulation. We already have that power in a section of the Act which is not being repealed. My right hon. Friend read out that section. It gives the Minister power to call upon the Corporation to furnish all the particulars which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite wish us to secure. That is the first thing. We have all that power.
The second thing is whether we shall use it. From 1st April the responsibility for this scheme is transferred from the Minister of Food to myself, at the Colonial Office. It is obviously in the interests of the Colonial Office, who would have the responsibility, in the interests of the Corporation, of the new Scheme and of the House and the country, to see that when this transfer takes place on 1st April we start from that date with a clean record.
My right hon. Friend indicated I thought that, first of all, we have the


power and, secondly, that we intend to use it, and if we feel that power ought to be more clearly defined and made mandatory we could look at that on Report stage. Until 31st March, when the old Scheme ends, it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Food, until the change over comes on 1st April. It is in my interest that the future of this Scheme should be clear. We shall, on that date, have that power and we intend to use it. We are advised that the power we now have is ample for that purpose but to make doubly sure my right hon. Friend indicated that we would look at this again on Report stage. If the power we now have is not sufficient to secure the object we have in view we shall take the necessary steps to see that it is sufficient.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman said he would require the Corporation to furnish this information. He has the power to require facilities for its verification. He indicated that he was certainly proposing to ask for the information, but is he telling the Committee that he will also have that information verified?

Mr. Griffiths: The responsible Minister until the end of March is still the Minister of Food, but from 31st March onwards the responsibility falls on me. It is my intention in the interests of the new Scheme and in the interests of the responsibility I shall then have taken over, to see that all the necessary steps, including verification, are taken. If I speak about using my powers the Committee will appreciate that I have at present no powers except those arranged with the Minister of Food. My powers come into operation when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament.

Mr. Lloyd: Including verification?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes.

Captain Crookshank: Until the right hon. Gentleman spoke I was inclined to the view that the response we have had had not been at all satisfactory, and I was proposing to ask my hon. Friends to accompany me into the Division Lobby on this issue. But after what the right hon. Gentleman has said at the last moment I think it will be reasonable for

us to pause a bit to see what he does propose to do.
He has pointed out that he has the powers in the existing Act. No one is denying that he has the powers or that the responsible Ministers have the powers. The point is, have they used them properly? Do they intend to use them? Our Amendment sought to make it mandatory for the Secretary of State to make the regulations which he has the power to do, and have the assets ascertained, verified and recorded. I agree that he has the power to do so, and we have been trying to press him to say he intends to do it. I understood from his last speech that he was intending to give the matter his attention between now and the remaining stages of the Bill. If that is so, then, according to the common usage of the Committee, it would not be right to press him on our Amendment if he is persuaded on the point. We attach particular importance—and I would remind him of it again—to having some form of verification other than that of the Corporation itself. That is an important point which, no doubt, he will take into consideration, as he said he would.
I appreciate that, as the Minister coming into this inheritance, which is not such a fine inheritance as all that, he wants to be certain at the date he takes it over that there are some assets, and that they are worth what they purport to be worth. He has said that he will look at this question and make sure of the position, and I ask him to weigh very carefully what my hon. Friends have so forcibly said on this Amendment. Had there been a general inquiry into these matters, one would have been fortified with further information.
If it could reasonably easily be managed that some part of this process could be taken out of the hands of the Corporation and put into some independent hands, I am sure that all of us who have in mind the interests of the British taxpayer would be more satisfied. In the circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friends will not wish to press the matter further now. If the Amendment were withdrawn we could, if necessary, resume the argument at a further stage.

Mr. Gammans: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Captain Crookshank: I beg to move, in page 2, line 38, at the end, to add:
(5) If it appears to the Secretary of State to be in the general interest that all or any of the functions of the Overseas Food Corporation should he discharged by any other person, undertaking or authority, and that such person, undertaking or authority is ready and willing to discharge such functions, the Secretary of State may make regulations for the transfer of such functions and for the transfer (whether by sale or otherwise) of the assets, property, rights and liabilities of the Overseas Food Corporation or part thereof to such person, undertaking or authority and in such manner and to such extent as may he prescribed.
This is the Amendment which we foreshadowed earlier today when we were discussing the possibility of the arrangements which ought to be made for winding up the Corporation. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill which foresees the eventual completion of the work of the Corporation. Here we propose an Amendment, the general effect of which is subject to regulations, because in these matters we must preserve the ultimate authority of Parliament and yet in these semi-commercial affairs it is difficult to see that one can do it otherwise than by specific regulation.
That is why, in spite of the slight leg-pulling on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, we have had to fall back on a system of prescribing regulations. There is no other way in which the object we have in mind could be achieved. We want to give the right hon. Gentleman power which he has not got now to wind up the Corporation. We wanted originally to give the Corporation power to wind itself up, but that we failed to achieve.
We suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman thinks that it is in the general interest that all or any of the functions of the Corporation should come to an end or be discharged by somebody else, whether it is a person, an undertaking or an authority, he should have power to prescribe that under regulations—that is to say, subject to the assent of Parliament. If such person, authority or undertaking, is willing to take over, that should be done, after the necessary arrangements with regard to assets and liabilities have been made on conditions and under such arrangements as the right hon. Gentleman would wish. It might be by sale or it might not.
The Minister would be entitled to ask who we think might wish to take over

some or all of the functions or the assets or the liabilities of the Corporation. We said something earlier about the possibility of the Colonial Development Corporation eventually stepping in to this inheritance. One of my hon. Friends made an extremely sensible suggestion that the development of that Corporation might eventually be on a geographical basis, and that it could bring within its ambit not only what it is doing already in East Africa but what will be the remainder of the functions of the Overseas Food Corporation.
That is one possible destination for part, or all, of this undertaking. Another might well be some kind of arrangement, possibly with the local colonial Government or possibly with the East African High Commission. I am merely throwing out various possibilities, because I do not know. What I want, and what my hon. Friends want, is that the Minister should have the power to shed all or any of the responsibilities and functions of the Corporation, should he so desire.
10.0 p.m.
The right hon. Gentleman said just now that, personally, he would never consent to the handing over of any of these things to any form of private enterprise, but I hope he will reflect further about that, if necessary. After all, the Lord President himself, who is our chief mentor on Socialist thought on this matter, has constantly told us that there is a public sector and a private sector in industry, and that the two have to work together. It may very well be that some opportunities should pass from the public to the private sector.
Again, there is an instance which comes to my mind, because I heard it suggested when we were told that the Kongwa area was possibly going over to ranching. I understand that a firm at Dar-es-Salaam—a well-known firm, the Liebig Company, in which the Tanganyika Government has a half-share—has a canning factory. That is the sort of thing on which, possibly, a Secretary of State, even if not the present one, would be anxious to link up Government and private enterprise, for the use, on whatever terms may be agreed, of the ranching area. I do not know, but that is the sort of thing I have in mind.
The hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland), who was joined by so many


of my hon. Friends as well as his own, discussed possible co-operative developments in that area. If such developments occurred, in due course, would it not be quite reasonable for the Secretary of State to shed some of the functions of the Overseas Food Corporation to these other entities, if they emerge? Again, I do not know, and, of course, they may not emerge, but I am assuming that there was a basis in what he said which is of great value to the future. If that is so, it would be a pity if, through stubborn prejudice, the Overseas Food Corporation could not release some of these areas or divest itself of some of its functions to the advantage of such bodies.
Having given these instances, and I do not doubt that my hon. Friends could perfectly well add others to the argument, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will think that this is a useful power to put into the Bill, in that it envisages these three different lots of authorities who are residuary legatees to the Overseas Food Corporation, and which may be composed of private persons, undertakings or public or local authorities. This suggestion leaves it to the right hon. Gentleman, in due course and in his wisdom, to make the decision and ultimately wind up the affairs of this Corporation.
The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that this Corporation, with its limited functions in this vast area of East Africa, is really viable or can serve any useful purpose. It might have done had the original conception of 1948 gone on successfully, but I do not believe that there is room for it today. What we have to beware of in all these matters is a multiplicity of organisations and authorities, because we are gradually reaching the stage when the world seems to be governed by innumerable committees, generally of a semi-governmental nature, and the world is not getting on any better as a result.
We want to give the right hon. Gentleman a chance, if he will take it. If he does not take it, there will be no great harm done. We do not think that this has got to happen, but that it will be a great help to have these powers in the general interest. I am quite certain that, if the right hon. Gentleman looks upon it in that light, he will be only too anxious to accept this Amendment, and, if he does

so, I am quite certain that it will improve the Bill, which I do not think is a very good one, anyway.

The Chairman: Before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman proceeds, I should be grateful if he would made one point clear. Am I right in thinking that the next following Amendment should be taken in conjunction with the one which is at present under discussion, and that that Amendment will fall in the event of the first Amendment not being passed? I gather that some assurance has been given that both these two Amendments should be discussed, but it seems to me that the second is consequential on the first. Am I right in thinking so?

Captain Crookshank: As it stands now, Major Milner, this is the ultimate end. If the right hon. Gentleman is dispossessed of all the functions, then we say that there must be something in the Bill to show that the Corporation ceases to exist. The two Amendments can certainly be argued together, if that is any convenience to the Committee, because it seems to me that unless the right hon. Gentleman is given power to transfer or dispose of these assets, the circumstances envisaged in the second Amendment cannot arise. We put down two separate Amendments in case separate Divisions or discussions were desired.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It is very pleasant to hear, after all the statements and charges about this being a completely bankrupt concern with not a penny to its name, and with no goods anywhere, that what the Opposition are now so concerned about is who is going to get what is left. So there is something left, after all. I am glad to see that hon. Members opposite have become converted to delegated legislation, and, I hope, therefore, that in future we shall have less opposition to such legislation from the party opposite.
The power to which I am now referring —not whether it should be used, or how it should be used—is already in the 1948 Act. This is merely an amending Bill, and therefore leaves certain Sections of the original Act unrepealed. If hon. Members will turn to Section 10 of the 1948 Act, they will see that it says:
The power of the responsible Minister to give directions to the Corporation shall extend to the giving to them of directions—

(a) as to the disposal of capital assets, of


(b) as to the application of proceeds of such disposals"—
and so on—
Provided that directions as to the application of proceeds of disposal shall be given by the responsible Minister with the approval of the Treasury.
The position, therefore, is that as from 1st April these powers will vest in me.

Captain Crookshank: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman took legal advice on this point. What he has just read out refers to the disposal of capital assets, but what we are talking about in this Amendment are the functions of the Corporation, and the functions, as amended, will be found in the new Clause 2 (1). The Minister could dispose of the assets, but he would still have the Corporation on his hands while he is doing what he is supposed to do in Clause 2 (1).

Mr. Griffiths: As I understand it, this would give me power by regulation to dispose of and hive off any of the activities of this Scheme. My advice is that that is covered by the Clause, to which I have already referred, in conjunction with paragraph 9 of the Schedule to the 1948 Act. That is the position.
I ask the Committee to reject this Amendment, and I do so quite apart from the legal aspects. As I understand it, the powers to which I have referred would allow me, if I were so minded, to do what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's Amendment provides; but I am of the view, as I have already said, that from 1st April the Colonial Development Scheme will become an experiment in Tanganyika which we all hope will be a success. I am convinced that whenever we come to discuss the future of this scheme it must be after discussion with the Government of Tanganyika. We all admit that the original and very laudable purpose of the Scheme was to meet the food shortage of 1947. It failed to do that, and we all admit it.
In the future the value of this Scheme is to the people of Tanganyika. What will happen to any part of it or to all of it in the future is, in my view, clearly a matter which I ought to decide after discussion with the Government of Tanganyika itself. If at that stage some major change is required, I do not think it would be right or desirable to make

that change by regulations. I think we should come to the House and make it as a big decisive change by legislation. I therefore ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Alport: It strikes me, from the last words which the Secretary of State has spoken, that he is regarding this Scheme in far too parochial a manner. One sees from the White Paper setting out the aims of the Corporation for the future that one aim, in paragraph 12 (A), is
To establish, by agricultural practices and scientific experiments, a pattern of agriculture which will utilise economically all the cleared land available and which, if successful, will point the way to future development.
That means that, at any rate, the Kongwa experiment, as I understand it, is to be used for experimental agriculture. I think the same applies to the Southern Province and to Urambo. It would be very reasonable indeed if that were one of the purposes. But this form of agricultural research is surely the responsibility primarily of the East Africa High Commission. If it is not at present, it would be very efficient and economical if this type of central research were added to the responsibilities of that High Commission. That being the case, surely the right hon. Gentleman should think of the future of this Scheme in the context not simply of Tanganyika but of East Africa as a whole.

Mr. Griffiths: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I think we are at one in this. If I talk of Tanganyika, it is because the Scheme we are discussing at present is there; but, as he appreciates, under the new régime the Overseas Food Corporation will have the right to operate in East Africa.

Mr. Alport: May I, then, follow from that point? It will not only have the right to operate in Tanganyika but, as the Secretary of State says, in East Africa as a whole. Therefore, it seems to me appropriate to have this new Scheme linked more closely with the East Africa High Commission than it is at present. After all, the East Africa High Commission already carries out very considerable responsibilities on behalf of all three territories. Those responsibilities are not only of a financial nature, and, from the point of view of communications, closely bound up with the future of the existing


Scheme, but they are also, as I have pointed out, closely linked with it from the point of view of agriculture itself.
I should like, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the fact that he already claims to have power of devolving responsibility and disposing of assets, he is prepared to consider placing the Overseas Food Corporation as it affects East Africa at the present moment—which is really the territory to which his activities are to be confined—in closer conjunction with the East Africa High Commission. I asked earlier, on another point, whether it would be possible to have a representative of the East Africa High Commission on the Board of Directors. I do not develop that point because it is out of order, but I think that a link between the Corporation and the High Commission is an important matter which the Secretary of State should consider.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I hope it will not be felt that we are wasting time by examining this proposition carefully. This is a very important matter. As I understood the right hon. Gentleman, he opposed this Amendment on one principal ground. He sets aside the legalistic arguments of his Department and opposes the Amendment on this ground. He says, "Sooner or later, perhaps, we shall have to enter into negotiations with the Tanganyika Government, and if I am ever going to pass any part of this over to the Tanganyika Government it must not be done by regulation, which is what this Amendment proposes. Therefore, I oppose the Amendment."
That does not seem to me to be reasonable. If the right hon. Gentleman does not like the method of regulation perhaps he would agree to some other method. The point we want to insist upon is that he or his successors shall be free, if they think it wise and if they are so advised, to shed some or all of the functions of this body to other appropriate bodies—for example, the Tanganyika Government. We are only asking him to take power to enable him to do that. He says that his lawyers advise him that he has got that power. I am not a lawyer, but I am certain that there is not a Member in the House who is convinced by the

report which the right hon. Gentleman gave of his lawyers' advice. I do not think Clause 10 can, under any conceivable circumstances, be said to give him the power which is proposed in the Amendment.
Let us consider the kind of situation that might arise. We are to undertake, according to the White Paper,
a scheme of large-scale experimental development to establish the economics of clearing and mechanised or partially mechanised agriculture under tropical conditions.
The clearing is not going on for ever. I do not think the clearing can go on for seven years. There is not a great deal of clearing proposed, and I fancy that it will all be done in a matter of a year or two if this Scheme proceeds. The main thing which will be left will be mechanised or semi-mechanised agriculture.
There are three different and quite distinct areas in Tanganyika—Kongwa, Urambo and the Southern Province. Some of us have seen all three of them some of us have examined all three of them, and they are all quite different. It is surely conceivable that it might pay the right hon. Gentleman and be of infinite advantage to the development of Tanganyika if he got competitive examinations going—if, for example, the Tanganyika Government said, "We will take over Urambo and we will compare our experiments with your experiments in Kongwa." It might be that some other Government or Department would take over the Southern Province.
I asked the right hon. Gentleman, earlier, why he turned down that proposal, and he did not answer me. We have had no reference to that question. My hon. Friend has put it to him again, and I am reinforcing it. Here is the Colonial Development Corporation, with six schemes already in the area about which we are talking. The machinery is there, and so is the administration. What is the Colonial Development Corporation? It has run into a bit of bad luck in. the Gambia area, but let us remember that a great Scotsman, Lord Reith, is at the head of the Colonial Development Corporation. It is under new management and, I think, very good management. I say, as I said on an earlier occasion, that, by and large, the Colonial Development Corporation have proceeded with their schemes with a great


deal of caution and good sense, and, with the exception of the Gambia—

The Chairman: We really cannot go into all these detailed matters. The question is really a simple one. If the hon. Member will forgive me, I hope he will confine himself to the Amendment.

Mr. Stewart: My point is this. Here is a body to which, in the interests of the scheme, of East Africa, of the House and of the nation, it might be wise to give part of this Scheme to handle. That is all we are arguing. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us why he refuses to give one of his Socialist bodies a chance to do some of that work. Surely he believes in it to that extent. Why does he refuse, at any time at all and in any circumstances, to give himself the power to invite that body, among others, to do some part of this work? His refusal does not make sense, and unless we are given a satisfactory reply I hope we shall divide the Committee.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: With very great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that he has the powers that he seems to think he has—powers to dispose of the functions of the Overseas Food Corporation. According to the Section of the Act which he read, he has the power to dispose of assets, etc., but not the power to dispose of functions, and it is to that question that we wish to draw attention.
It appeared to me that some such provision as this would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. If I may say so with respect, after having watched him in the House in the past year I would say that he is a very shrewd person, and I should have thought that an Amendment such as this would have provided him with an opportunity, if this Scheme does not meet with the success for which we all hope, to get out of the difficulty. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows from what I said last week, I do not think the schemes envisaged in the White Paper will be a success. I may be wrong, but if I prove to be right, then an Amendment such as this would enable the Minister to make other arrangements for carrying on. Might I draw the Minister's attention to the White Paper in which these schemes are outlined? Kongwa remains at 12,000 acres and—

The Chairman: I do not think that that question arises on the Amendment.

Mr. Craddock: I am only trying to show how it would be prudent, if the present schemes broke down, for the right hon. Gentleman to have some means of changing them.

The Chairman: I fully appreciate that, but the hon. Member is apparently about to deal with various districts and details and with what might or might not be done. He is entitled to do that in general terms but not to go into details—as indeed I indicated to another hon. Member.

Mr. Craddock: I bow to your ruling, Major Milner. There is little further I can add, except that I think the sum which will be needed will be very much larger than the £6½ million proposed. If that is the case, the right hon. Gentleman may want to make other arrangements. The Amendment would give him those full powers without his having to come back to ask for them.

Captain Duncan: I approach this question as a Scotsman. It seems to me that the right angle at which to approach this business is that of trying to get back as much as we can of the money which the Government have poured down the drain. The Amendment seems to give the Government an opportunity to do that. The Secretary of State says that on 1st April he will have the right, but not the duty, to dispose of assets. I do not think he has the right to dispose of the functions.
The functions can be as great a liability as the assets can be of value in the other direction. Perhaps I may give an instance. There is a very good hospital at Kongwa, and if the management and cost of running it were taken away from the new Board and accepted by the Tanganyika Government, that would amount not only to the disposal of an asset but also to the disposal of a function. That is why we want to make quite certain that the right hon. Gentleman can dispose not only of assets but also of functions. In that way we might not only help His Majesty's Government to do what we all want to see done, but we might also have a better opportunity of getting our money back.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I shall not detain the Committee more than a minute, but I think that as this is a very important Clause it would be a great pity if the Amendment were rejected by the Secretary of State through an error of judgment. He has the power—of course he has—for the disposal of assets; but as to the transfer of functions, I certainly subscribe to the suggestion of one of my hon. Friends that, in due course, the West African High Commission may come into this picture, and we do not believe ourselves that the Secretary of State has

power to transfer functions at the present time.

If he has been wrongly advised, would it not be a very good thing to admit it, or to admit the possibility of it, and to meet us on this point? It would be a great pity to mislead the Committee, albeit unknowingly, in a belief that we ourselves do not consider is capable of substantiation.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 128; Noes, 150.

Division No. 47.]
AYES
10.26 p.m


Alport, C. J. M.
Heald, Lionel
Powell, J. Enoch


Arbuthnot, John
Heath, Edward
Redmayne, M.


Baldwin, A. E.
Henderson, John (Catheart)
Robertson, Sir David (Caithness)


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Birch. Nigel
Higgs, J. M. C.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Bishop, F. P.
Hill, Dr Charles (Luton)
Roper, Sir Harold


Black, C. W.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Russell, R. S.


Bossom, A. C.
Hirst, Geoffrey
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.


Bower, Norman
Hollis, M. C.
Scott, Donald


Boyle, Sir Edward
Hope, Lord John
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cmdr. Gurney
Hornsby-Smith, Miss P.
Smith, E. Martin (Grantham)


Buchan-Hepburn, P, G. T.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Burden, Squadron Leader F. A,
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N,.)
Spearman, A. C M.


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. dark (E'b'rgh W.)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Keeling, E. H.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard (N. Fylde)


Craddock, G. B (Spelthome)
LeggB-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Cranborne, Viscount
Lennox-Boyd, A. T
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Linstead, H. N.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral
Storey, S.


Crouch, R f.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Cundiff, F. W.
Macdonald, Sir Peter(I. o' Wight)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Deedes, W. F.
McKibbin), A.
Studholme, H. G.


Digby, S. W.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Sutcliffe, H.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Maclay, Hon. John
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Teevan, T. L.


Drewe, C.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)
Thompson, Lt.-Cmdr. R. (Creydon, W."


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Thorneycroft, Peter (Monmouth)


Fisher, Nigel
Macpherson, Major Niall (Dumfries)
Turner, H. F. L.


Fletcher, Waller (Bury)
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fort, R.
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Foster, John
Maudling R.
Wade, D. W.


Fraser, sir I. {Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Mellor, Sir John
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Gage, C. H.
Molson, A. H. E.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Monckton, Sir Walter
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Morrison, John (Satisbury)
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Gammans, L. D.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S.(Cirencester)
Wheatley, Major M. J.(Poole)


Garner-Evans, E. H. (Denbigh)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Wills, G.


Granville, Edgar (Eye)
Nutting, Anthony
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Grimond, J.
Odey, G. W.
York, C.


Grlmtton, Robert (Westbury)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. O.



Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Osborne, C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Perkins, W. R. 0.
Major Conant and Mr. Vosper.


Hay, John
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.





NOES


Acland, Sir Richard
Boardman, H.
Cullen, Mrs. A.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Bowden, H. W.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Darling, George (Hillsborugh)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)


Awbery, S. S.
Burke, W. A.
Davies, Harold (Leek)


Ayles, W. H.
Burton, Miss E.
Deer, G.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S)
Donnelly, D.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A J
Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Dye, S.


Bartley, P.
Champion, A. J.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Bonn, Wedgwood
Collindridge, F.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S W>


Benson, G.
Cook, T. F.
Evans. Stanley (Wednesbury)


Bing, G. H. C.
Cove. W G
Fernyhough, E.


Blenkinsop, A.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Finch, H. J.


Blyton, W. R.
Crawley, A.
Follick, M.




Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Molnnes, J.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Simmons, C. J.


Gibson, C. W.
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Slater, J.


Gilzean, A.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Snow, J. W.


Glanville, James (Consett)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Sorensen, R. W.


Gooch, E. G.
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Manuel, A. G.
Sparks, J. A.


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mathers, Rt. Hon. G.
Steele, T.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon James (Llanelly)
Mellish, R. J.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Sylvester, G. O.


Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Mitchison, G. R.
Taylor, Robert (Morpeth)


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Monslow, W.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Hannan, W.
Moody, A. S.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Harrison, J.
Morgan, Dr. H. B
Thomas, Iorworth (Rhondda, W)


Hastings, S.
Morley, R.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


hayman, F. H.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Thurtle, Ernest


Herbison, Miss M.
Moyle, A.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Holman, P.
Nally, W.
Vernon, W. F.


Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Wallace, H. W.


Houghton, D.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford. C.)


Hoy, J.
Orbach, M.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
West, D. G.


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Parker, J.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. (Edinb'gh, E.)


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Paton, J.
While, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Janner, B.
Pearson, A.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Johnson, James (Rugby)
Porter, G.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon W


Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Proctor, W. T.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland)


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Williams, David (Neath)


Keenan, W.
Rees, Mrs. D.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Kinley, J.
Richards, R.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Roberts, A.
Wilson, Rt. Hon Harold (Huyton)


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Wise, F. J.


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Younger, Hon. K.


Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N)



Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Lindgren, G. S.
Royle, C.
Mr. Popplewell and Mr. Delargy.


Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3.—(FINANCIAL PROVISIONS.)

Mr. N. Macpherson: I beg to move, in page 2, line 43, at the end, to insert:
including in particular proper allocations to general reserve, proper provision for depreciation or renewal of assets, interest on any sums paid to that Corporation by the Secretary of State until repaid to the Exchequer, and interest on and proper provision for the redemption of capital, represented be the value of assets assessed in accordance with subsection (6) of this section.

The Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee also to discuss the two other Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson), in page 3, line 17, at the end, to insert:
(6) All assets in possession of the Overseas Food Corporation at the commencement of this Act shall he revalued by an independent Commission of three persons who shall he appointed by the Secretary of State and remunerated by that Corporation, being persons not holding any office of profit under the Crown and not having had any previous connection with that Corporation; and all such assets, except in so far as they may be subsequently disposed of for valuable consideration, shall be shown in the books of the Corporation at the values determined by the said Commission, subject to proper annual depreciation.
and in line 18, to leave out "fourteen."

Mr. Macpherson: I am quite agreeable to that, Major Milner, on the understanding that it might be possible for the Government to accept one Amendment without accepting the others. The point of the first Amendment is clear on the face of it. Subsection (1) lays down:
It shall he the duty of the Overseas Food Corporation so to exercise and perform their functions as to secure, as soon as practicable, that their revenues are not less than sufficient to meet all sums properly chargeable to revenue account, taking one year with another.
From there my Amendment goes on. Its purpose is to ensure that the proper charges are made against revenue. It will not escape the right hon. Gentleman's attention that the first Amendment has been based on what might be termed rather unrespectable parenthood, namely, the Transport Act. In the same way, we suggest that, in particular, proper allocations should be made to general reserve. That is covered by Section 14, the reference to which the third Amendment proposes to delete. I submit that it is right and proper that there should be a reserve fund, for reasons which I shall show later, and proper provision for depreciation or renewal of assets is, of course, essential. The Amendment provides:
… in particular proper allocations to general reserve, proper provision for depreciation or


renewal of assets, interest on any sums paid to that Corporation by the Secretary of State until repaid to the Exchequer …
The Secretary of State is acting as banker and is providing, and will be providing, from 1st April the working capital for the Corporation. The Amendment goes on:
… and interest on and proper provision for the redemption of capital …
That is added because it is in the Transport Act. It seems to me that if it is right that the Transport Commission should have to meet this charge, so ought the Overseas Food Corporation to meet it as a charge against revenue, for reasons which I shall show in a minute.
The question then is how that capital is to be calculated. It is suggested that the capital should be calculated as the value of the assets assessed in accordance with the following Amendment. The reason it is necessary that the assets should be shown in some form or another in spite of the fact that the whole of the advances are being written off is that unless they are shown in some form or another and charged against revenue account, we are not really getting a proper experiment. As the whole purpose of the scheme is to make quite certain that we are going to have a proper large-scale experimental farming operation, it would be quite wrong if the right hon. Gentleman were to take over all the assets at no value whatsoever and make no charge whatsoever in respect of those assets.
On the previous Clause we debated the question of the valuation of assets, and my hon. Friends dealt in particular with the value of plant, machinery and vehicles. I do not altogether share their difficulties in this respect, since the amount is shown in the balance sheets and has been already very substantially depreciated, and no doubt this next year will show a very substantial depreciation. Buildings and installations were shown in the last balance sheet at something like £4 million. But perhaps the most important part of the assets is the amount that is shown for development and land clearing. It is shown as an asset at £16 million.
Of course, the whole of the advances are being written off, but nevertheless that represents not only a real asset but the main basis of the experiments which are being carried out, and it would be quite absurd if that value were to be treated

as wholly written off and not be shown in any way against revenue. I submit that it would be improper for the Corporation itself to put a value upon this asset. It would not be normal, either, to ask the accountants to put a value on the asset; it is not properly their job. Therefore, there is no alternative but to get some outside body to value it. It would be a reasonable and proper thing for an outside body, not only to place a value upon the land that has been cleared, but also to look at the valuations standing on the books on 1st April of this year, at the time when the right hon. Gentleman takes over those assets.
There are, of course, additional arguments for that. One is that it is in the interests of the right hon. Gentleman himself, because otherwise each time we debate the accounts of the Overseas Food Corporation., inevitably everybody will have in mind the thought "Yes, but this is a return on £36 million"—or whatever the ultimate figure may be. We can expunge quite easily by a Clause, as is done in the Bill, the whole of the advances, but we cannot expunge from people's minds the fact that all this money has been spent; they will have that reservation perpetually in mind. It would be an advantage to the right hon. Gentleman himself to have a revaluation so that the capital of the Corporation as from 1st April would be shown at a certain given figure.
Of course, it might be asked "What is the purpose in re-valuing all the assets if quite a number of them are to be disposed of?" Equally it may be said that if they are being disposed of, it is of advantage to know what their true value amounts to. Consider, for example, the hospital at Kongwa, to which reference has already been made. It would be a snare and a delusion simply to hand it over to the Tanganyika Government merely on the ground that it is of no further use to the Overseas Food Corporation. It would be quite wrong that the Tanganyika Government should take it over for nothing if it were going to be of real value to them. If, on the other hand, it would not be of value to that Government, then it would not be an asset, but a liability, and they should not take it over anyway. Although we are anxious to assist the Colonies in every way we can, we want to know the price of the assistance we are giving. For this


reason also, it is necessary that all the assets should be properly valued.
The effect of the third of these Amendments, which proposes to leave out the word "fourteen", would be to include Section 14 of the 1948 Act and to keep it in effect. This simply means that it would be necessary for the Corporation themselves to build up reserves. We really must have from the right hon. Gentleman at this stage a clear idea of how he intends the Corporation to work. Does he intend it only to work like a branch of the Civil Service, simply receiving a Vote from Parliament and accounting for it to Parliament; or is it to be a proper economic, commercial experiment? We must know which it is to be. While it may be perfectly proper for the one farm in Kongwa, which is purely an experimental farm, to be treated as a branch of the Civil Service and possibly be put under the East Africa High Commission, the other 23 existing farms should be treated as commercial propositions. But unless the assets are re-valued and their value known, it would be quite impossible to do this.
These are the reasons why we have put down these Amendments. It merely remains for me to say that, in so far as we are suggesting that the assets should be re-valued, then I submit that it would be proper that they should be re-valued by entirely independent persons. We must know what assets there are, what is their value, and what proportion is to be retained. Only on that basis can we have a really proper, effective experiment.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Baldwin: I want to reinforce the arguments of my hon. Friends. Even at this late stage, I would say that if the Government had accepted a previous Amendment to wind up a bankrupt affair as it ought to have been wound up, by a liquidator who would have appointed independent valuers, this Amendment would not have been necessary. The same valuers who valued the assets at the end of the old Corporation, would have handed over the assets to the new Corporation at whatever they thought those assets were worth. It is obvious that the new Corporation cannot furnish proper accounts unless it has a clear picture of what it takes over from the old Corporation and the value at

which it takes over those assets. How can it appreciate that value if it does not know the value of the various items at the start of the year?
I hope that the Colonial Office will present a proper picture at the end of 12 months' trading to show us in no uncertain way what it has done. I still suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should ask his accountants for their views on how this job should be cleared up. It is no good asking the old Corporation to furnish accounts. I have never heard of a bankrupt being asked to furnish a statement of his assets before going into the bankruptcy court. He has to get an independent person to do this. That valuation should be made so that it may be realised what is going to be handed over to the new Corporation.
I was disturbed to hear that sales were proceeding. How does the old Corporation know what the new Corporation wants? Is it selling something which should be handed over to the new Corporation? Who is going to decide that? I think that something ought to be done at once so that we may know exactly what is to happen to this bankrupt concern. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look upon this matter from a business point of view and will call in a liquidator.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I am not going to apologise for the lateness of the hour, because I think that an important issue has been raised by my hon. Friends. It is extraordinary how the Government are getting away with this. It is absolutely "jiggery-pokery" so far as the accounting side is concerned. We have heard the Minister of State tonight talking about the disposal of stores and putting across to this Committee at some given date £1,600,000 losses have been incurred in getting back £2,250,000. Those were his words. If he looks at the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow, he will find that he said that the cost of disposal was £1,600,000. I am sure that neither he nor the Committee knew what he was talking about. Was this a loss on the administrative side, or was it a loss on the goods of which they were disposing? Some of the losses we have seen can be understood, but that statement was utter rubbish.
As my hon. Friend has suggested, by having no new valuation of the assets as they will appear when we start again on All Fool's Day, I feel that we are


playing about with the taxpayers' money. Let us know exactly where we stand. It is only right that we should know what assets are left, and whether there are any hidden assets. There are those who believe that there is not very much to be seen. Let us have an independent valuer, as has been suggested by my hon. Friend; let us see what the assets are in the light of this new proposal which the Government are putting forward. If the Government have this new idea in front of them, then surely independent valuers should be allowed to check these valuations and enable us to start afresh.
If this is not done, then when accounting has to be undertaken in a year or two we shall not have a true picture at all. There will not be any depreciation shown, for there will be no commencing assets upon which to base figures. In any normal company, the capital represented by this £36,500,000 would have to be written down to the valuation then placed upon it by whoever was appointed to liquidate the assets or whoever was going to buy them afresh in order to start again. Why should not this procedure be adopted here?
My hon. Friend has put forward a most sound proposal for a clean start on 1st April, and I hope that the Minister will concede this point to the Committee, because it will help tremendously in the long run. It ought to be appreciated that the Minister of Food has "passed the buck" to the Colonial Secretary, and I do not know which other Minister this matter can be passed to now; Ministers cannot go on handing it on. So let us get a new start correctly with the proper assets properly stated as in any normal system of accountancy. That case has been put forward in excellent detail in the proposal we have heard—we have almost had professional accountancy advice—and on reconsideration I am sure that the Colonial Secretary will be bound to agree with our suggestions.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not want anybody to get alarmed; I am not going to make a speech, but there is one thing I should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman. There has been some confusion in the minds of hon. Members since the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food made a reference to the sale of stores. He quoted a figure of

£1,500,000, and we should like to know if that is the loss or the cost of the sale of the stores. One hon. Member says one thing, and another hon. Member another.

Mr. J. Griffiths: That has no reference to the Amendment which we are now discussing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] No, it has no reference to it at all; there may be an opportunity to discuss that on the Motion that the Clause stand part of the Bill, and perhaps the information can be given then. But if I may have the attention of hon. Members who have spoken on this Amendment, I would point out that it is quite clear that we are discussing what will be the position after 1st April when the responsibility is transferred. How do we propose to finance this in the future? That is set out in the White Paper, and if hon. Members read the last sentence in paragraph 19, on page 6, they will find:
Their operations will, therefore, be financed from the time of transference of Ministerial responsibility from moneys to be voted by Parliament, subject to effective control by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in consultation with the Treasury.
Therefore, the whole of the operations from the date of the transfer will be financed by Votes by Parliament, and the procedure by which Votes are presented and discussed would apply fully here. It would be inconsistent to make all these arrangements about what is to be set aside—certain sums for depreciation, for the redemption of capital, and so on. In future, from 1st April, the Corporation will be financed by Votes, and the purpose for which every penny is required will be set out. There will have to be, of course, provision for this Board of a sum in a general way. As from 1st April, we shall be financing it in that way by a Vote from Parliament.

Mr. N. Macpherson: The same procedure applies to the Royal Ordnance Factories, which are also financed by a Vote. They show, in their balance sheets, the value of capital assets. I suggest that some machinery should be devised so that charges may be made against revenue in respect of capital assets of the Corporation, whether the advances in respect of them have been written off or not. That is the point to which I ask the Colonial Secretary to devote his answer.

Mr. Griffiths: In the past the Overseas Food Corporation was given advances, if I may use the phrase, of money from the Consolidated Fund. In future, its requirements will be met by annual Vote. Because they are met by annual Vote, I am advised—and it is my experience, too—the sums to be given by annual Vote would be to meet the expenses of the Corporation in carrying out the scheme.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I am sure that the Minister is not deliberately trying to miss the point. The point is that we want to get commencing assets. It is not a question of how much additional advance is approved by this House from time to time, which, no doubt, will be fully accounted for as to the way it is expended. It is a question of how these accounts are done. We say that there should be correct assets to commence with on 1st April and correct charges against revenue for depreciation and other charges, such as my hon Friend has pointed out. I think that the Colonial Secretary will appreciate that he has missed the point entirely, although I am sure it is not his wish to do so.

Mr. Griffiths: Most of these speeches are relevant to a debate that we had earlier and on which I made a statement.

Captain Duncan: I have put my name to these Amendments, and I particularly support the second one, the main object of which is to obtain the proper valuation of the assets. Here we have written off £36 million and are starting a new Corporation with another £6 million. I agree that any future money to be voted by Parliament or by the public will be fully accounted for. In this case we should have a trading account like that of the Royal Ordnance Factories. There would be on the assets side of this trading account the value of the assets in detail.
What we want to find out is the re-valuation of the existing assets so that we can get a proper figure in the first year of the new Board. That is the point of our Amendments. It is a point which the Colonial Secretary has not answered. Our idea is that the only right way of obtaining the valuation of the assets is to have a new body of people to do the valuation. I do not like the idea of the Corporation valuing its own assets. We want an independent valuer, and that is the point the Minister has not answered.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Maudling: I do not understand the Colonial Secretary's logic. The Clause refers to sums properly chargeable to revenue account. The first Amendment which we are discussing defines certain sums properly chargeable to revenue account. If, then, those sums are properly within that definition, why does the Minister object to including them in the Clause? If they are not properly within that definition, we ought to know. Does the Corporation intend to make appropriate allocations to general reserves, renewal of assets, and so on? If the Corporation intends to make this provision, then why not write it into the Bill? If not, then surely this Committee should be told so.

Sir Ian Fraser: The right hon. Gentleman has said that in future the activities of this enterprise will be financed by Votes from Parliament. That is clear enough. When financing the activities of the Army or Navy, Parliament is approached every year and asked for so much money. It is granted, or whatever proportion Parliament is prepared to give. But this is a trading concern. Is it to be assumed that it is going to make a loss every year for ever and ever, and will come to Parliament always for a grant because it is going to make a loss; or will it one day make a profit?
Suppose it takes on its initial assets for nothing, and during the next year or two it is compelled to buy some new machinery or plant; will it treat that as a capital item, as a fixed asset, in its balance sheet? Will it write it off over a period of years? Directly it establishes the practice of maintaining a commercial balance sheet—and it seems to me that it must do—it will be following exactly the practice suggested by my hon. Friends, namely, that of having a balance sheet showing its fixed assets and writing them off out of revenue. If ever it is to make a profit, what will it do with the profit? Will it be used to set up reserves, to write off against depreciation, or merely be paid back to the Treasury against the draft for which it asks? The right hon. Gentleman must realise that this is not like the Armed Forces of the Crown, or the Ministry of Health. It is a trading concern, and therefore it must have assets. As it must start off with them, it is not


unreasonable that the assets should be valued.

Captain Crookshank: The right hon. Gentleman, on an earlier Amendment, said that he would look at the question of the assets, and perhaps in the light of this discussion he will also take this point into consideration. I listened very carefully to what he had to say, and it seems to me that he was very much concerned about how the Corporation was to be financed in future, not by advances but by Votes, which of course was not our point. My hon. Friends have been talking about the desirability of finding out, at the particular moment when the right hon. Gentleman assumes responsibility, the value of the previous assets, and I hope, therefore, he will take that point, as well as the other point, seriously into consideration.
As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) has said, we were under the impression—we may be wrong—from reading subsections (1) and (3) of this Clause that we were dealing with a Corporation which was meant to be a trading concern, and that it was possible to foresee both losses and profits over a period of years. The expectation of profits is not very likely, but it is a possibility which must not be entirely excluded from our minds when we are discussing this as objectively as we are doing now. Therefore, if there have to be trading accounts, and Parliament has to maintain its control, quite apart from the payment of money through the Vote into the concern, then there ought to be, before the Bill leaves this place, an agreed system of finding out what the assets are at the beginning. I hope that we shall not have to press this technical matter further now, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look into it. I will excuse him if he cannot do it now.
I hope that someone will explain at some stage why the Government want to leave out Section 14 of the original Act, which allows the Corporation to establish a reserve fund. If the Corporation is really going to be a proper trading organisation, it presumably ought to have a reserve fund. Whether it ought to or not, the Government intend it to have one, because the White Paper recommendation, on page 17, says that a sum

of £1 million is to be set aside to cover unforeseen contingencies. If that is not some kind of reserve fund, what is it? If it is a reserve fund, how can it be dealt with when the clause that allows the Corporation to have a reserve fund is being deleted from the whole structure? I hope that at some stage that point will be answered. I can understand that the right hon. Gentleman may not have his financial expert here, but there will be further stages. We shall look for a reply to that point, and also a considered answer about assets, reserving our right to take such measures as will then be available to us to try to rectify the matter.

Mr. J. Griffiths: In reply to an earlier Amendment, I said that it was our determination to see that there was a proper valuation of the assets before the changeover takes place. I promised that before the Report stage I would see whether the provisions were completely adequate on a point that all are agreed is desirable and essential. In discussing this Amendment, I thought we were mixing up with it something that I had covered already and on which I had given an assurance to the House. If the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the Amendment, I will look at the matter.

Mr. Alport: Before we leave the discussion of this Amendment, I wonder if the Secretary of State, the Minister of Food, the Minister of State, or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Food, or indeed any hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, has been able to find out the answer to the question—

The Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): That will arise on the Question that the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. N. Macpherson: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I beg to move, in page 3, line 12, after "aforesaid," to insert:
to the extent to which they are represented by the fixed and current assets of the Overseas Food Corporation at the commencement of this Act and.
The object of the Amendment is really quite simple. We are writing off tonight some £36,500,000 of public money


that has been lost, but we are not wiping off the sums that have been advanced to the East African Railways and Harbours Board. The purpose of this Amendment is to make quite certain that if and when these latter sums are recovered, they will be paid into the Treasury and in no way go as a hidden asset to the new Corporation. If we can have that assurance, we need not detain the House.

Mr. Dugdale: I think I can give that assurance. I do not think there is any possibility of what the hon. Gentleman thinks may occur, actually happening.

Mr. Frederic Harris: With regard to the disposal of the sum of £1,600,000, perhaps the Minister might be able to put us right on the matter.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: May I now ask for an answer to my question?

Mr. F. Wiley: I think the hon. Member is rather confused. I did not refer to the figure of £1,600,000, but I will give an explanation of the figure, which was given during the discussion. In fact two figures of that amount were given. The first relates to compensation to personnel, which is a straightforward figure. The second deals with the liquidation of assets in the shape of stores, and that can be broken down under the following headings. Stores of this magnitude obviously cannot be disposed of immediately, so the first item is the cost of the maintenance of these stores and assets, and for this purpose it is assumed that the liquidation will take about two years.
The second head is the cost of concentrating and moving the stores, because again it is obvious that in East Africa the stores would have to be collected and brought to dispersal centres. Thirdly, there is a number of miscellaneous obligations arising, such as the dispersal of concentrations of African labour, the termination of contracts for supplies, and that sort of thing. Under these heads the total amount estimated as being the cost of the immediate closure of the Scheme is about £1,600,000.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Would the hon. Gentleman answer the question I put to him a little while ago? If this amount of £1,600,000 is to be the cost of dispersal, what is the value of the goods to be dispersed? How can we judge whether this figure is reasonable or not unless we know what has to be disposed of? Is it £10 million, £20 million, £40 million worth of stores, or £1 million worth? The Committee should be told what it is we are talking about.

Mr. Frederic Harris: We know it was not the hon. Gentleman who gave us this figure; it was the Minister of State. What I should like to ask is what it is related to. Has it anything to do with the £2,250,000? Is it a new loss or a loss that has been going on? This disposal has been going on for months and months. When the Minister says that some of this is for the maintenance of such stores, I wonder who has been pulling his leg about it. What sort of maintenance? If he would look at the maintenance of these stores, he might be considerably shocked, and I am sure hon. Members here would be.
There is no suggestion that there is a first-rate staff, with a lot of stores that cannot be used, who keep on going round titivating things up. Much of it is in the open, much of it uncovered, and much of it is never seen. It is important that we should know what is behind this figure. The Minister's advisers must know. To suggest that this is something that none of us knows anything about, or something to do with maintenance, and to expect us to accept statements like that is going a bit too far. Can we have some proper explanation before we go home tomorrow, because we shall keep pressing for the proper answer until we get it? If the Minister is being kidded by somebody, we on this side are not.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a simple question. Is the £1,500,000 the cost of realising the £2,250,000 referred to on page 12 of the White Paper?

Squadron Leader Burden: The hon. Gentleman made three statements. He said it was for the maintenance of stores and assets for a period of two years. The maintenance of what stores and what assets? Is it to keep weevils out of peanuts that have never


existed? He speaks also of the cost of concentrating and moving stores that have already been maintained for two years, and of the Ministry's obligations for compensation for the loss of contracts. What is the explanation? The Committee have asked that this matter should be made clear, and all the Minister has done has been to throw the Committee into confusion. It is not good enough for the Government to get away without an explanation, and I must press for one.

Mr. F. Willey: Perhaps I should try again, but I assumed that hon. Members opposite had some commercial experience and that before joining this debate they would have informed themselves better about the assets of the Corporation. If we assume, as we do in these figures, that the Scheme is to be closed down immediately, obviously all the stores of the Corporation are disposed of. If hon. Gentlemen have had commercial experience, they know where to look in the Annual Report to find a valuation of these assets. It is not part of my responsibility to teach them elementary commercial procedure.
I am asked why we cannot dispose of these stores immediately; and if we cannot dispose of them immediately, why have we to look after them? The hon. Gentleman was not here during the debate; if he had been, he would have heard the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. W. Fletcher) saying that in East Africa stores have to be carefully looked after if they are not to deteriorate rapidly. If it is accepted that the stores have to be disposed of over a period, proper provision has to be made for their maintenance. No one has challenged this. For disposal, they will have to be concentrated, and that costs money. If the Scheme were immediately closed down, compensation would have to be paid on the termination without notice of contracts for supplies. These three heads provide the basis for the estimate of cost, which has not been challenged seriously by anyone who has studied the accounts, and which is the estimate of those best informed about this.

Sir I. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman does not act wisely to get cross when he is asked simple, straightforward questions about this matter. All he does is to repeat that his experts advise that £1,600,000

will be spent on concentrating, maintaining, guarding and preparing for sale a certain amount of stores. Yet he does not tell us what the stores are. He says that we can look in the balance sheet. No doubt that is true enough, but if he wants to get business through he would be very wise, as a good managing director, which he probably thinks he ought to be, to tell his shareholders the answer to that question. It is no good telling them that they ought to have read the papers. If he will be conciliatory and tell what he knows—if he knows it—it will undoubtedly help us to get on with the business.
He says, "You cannot do that, because who knows whether the stores will be sold quickly, as if we were winding up altogether, or whether it will take two or five years to sell them?" How can he bring an estimate at all if he does not know how many years they are to be watched, concentrated and guarded? It is obvious that there is something which he does not know or something which he is ashamed to tell us.

Mr. Baldwin: May I beg the Minister to get some information ready for us for the next occasion? I can assure him that some of us have had some commercial experience. All my life I have been realising assets, and my commission has been at the most about five per cent. My firm is at present realising assets and is managing to get about five per cent. Whoever gave the Minister the figure of £1,600,000 must have based it on something. What was it based on? Was it based on the realisation of something which was worth £10 million or £5 million, or was it based on a figure of £1 million? Why not say, "We shall lose £1,600,000; we are going to give the assets away"? That seems the obvious thing to do. He has not explained why he will lose £1,500,000 for breaking contracts which he has entered into. In these days of rising prices, anybody who has an old-time contract should be getting some advantage from it and not losing money on it. The Government have not made it clear to us, and we ought to have some explanation from them.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: There is still another point. In his reply, the hon. Gentleman said that, if the assumption is that all the stores are to be sold now, the figure will be found in the balance sheet, and thus £1,600,000 would presumably be the cost if that is his argument


for disposing of that total. But that is not the assumption to make, because we are to proceed for another seven years, and in that time we shall, presumably, use a great deal of the stores which now exist. Therefore, the stores which have to be sold cannot be anything like the stores which now exist. We are only asking what part is to be sold and what part shall be kept. Within a rough £20 million, could the Minister give us an answer?

Captain Crookshank: As is usual with Government matters, the Government have, I am afraid, got the Committee into a complete muddle. It is not surprising, because two different sets of questions are running together at the moment. As I understood it—may I try to see if I have it right?—when the Minister of State gave the original figures, which were more or less repeated by the Parliamentary Secretary, what we were then trying to elucidate was how it came about that the White Paper said that it would cost almost the same to wind up everything and to sell up as it would to go on with the modified plan. On that the right hon. Gentleman built up the figure of something like £6 million, which is referred to in the covering report, by saying that if we wound it up, we should have to compensate for loss of wages and salaries at a cost of £1,500,000, and that the liquidation of stores would cost £1,500,000.
Then there was some confusion because nobody could make out whether he said "cost of liquidation" or "loss on liquidation." That was where the confusion was to start with. He said that the third point was that £1,400,000 would be required to deal with the contracts which had to be abrogated; and that the total came to roughly £6 million. That was the first set of figures, as I understood it, but owing to the confusion about whether it was "cost of" or "loss on" liquidation, the Government were pressed to clarify that; but this delectable piece of information had to be kept back until we got to the Motion that the Clause stand part of the Bill.
Then the Parliamentary Secretary got up and told us what in his view those figures represented. He said, "Oh, yes. It is £1,600,000, and that is made up of the cost of maintaining the stores for two years pending sale, the cost of concen-

trating and moving the stores pending the sale, and miscellaneous, which includes—" here is what has got the whole thing muddled again—"the cost of African labour and the cost of terminating contracts." Well, the previous answer put the cost of terminating contracts at £1,500,000. Now, it is lumped in by the Parliamentary Secretary with all these other items to make £1,600,000. That is the first confusion.
The second confusion was when my hon. Friend and others tried to ascertain what part of the existing assets is to be sold, not on the assumption of the whole thing being closed down—which is what the first set of figures refers to but on the assumption that it is going on for seven years, according to the White Paper plan. I do not think that that figure—and I have listened to all these confusing figures—has been given to us by anybody from the Government Front Bench. It may be that they do not know. It may be that that is one of the things which will emerge when the Colonial Secretary goes into the question of the assets, which we have discussed already at considerable length. I should like to have an answer from one of the Ministers on that point.
If there is any way of clarifying—I am not sure that repeating them over again with different emphasis would do it—the other set of figures, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will think of some way of doing it, because the group of figures given, first by the Minister of State and then by the Parliamentary Secretary, of the £6 million which it would cost if we closed down the Scheme—which is the same cost as carrying it on—is in a way rather a piece of academic information, because nobody at present intends to close it down. Therefore, there is no great rush about giving us that information tonight so long as eventually we get the right information and not these confused figures. If I have disentangled the questions to which we want answers, and if the hon. Gentleman can help with the replies and can make them quite clear and foolproof, we shall be pleased.

Mr. F. Wiley: I will try the soft answer. I agree with much of what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, because I think that he has clarified the issue. I agree that it is academic. That is why I cannot understand the persistence of the Committee in seeking to obtain this in-


formation at present when it is not really relevant to the matters we are discussing—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, it is."] I said that the issue was put clearly by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and it is put clearly. What we are dealing with is not the loss upon the liquidation of the stores, but the cost of the liquidation of the stores.

Sir I. Fraser: Which stores?

Mr. Willey: All the stores of the Corporation. Those stores would have to be liquidated if the Scheme were closed down. The assumption upon which these figures rest, and the context in which they were given, is the complete closing down of the Scheme. If the Scheme is closed down completely, then we have to calculate as a cost consequent upon the closure of the Scheme the actual cost of, in this instance, disposing of the stores. That is a cost which we have to calculate and to isolate as the cost consequent upon the complete closure of the Scheme. The figures with which we have been dealing are those figures. These are estimates of the actual cost that would be consequent upon disposing entirely of the stores of the Corporation.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman made one small point—I quite agree that it adds another note of confusion—that in the disposal of stores we included the costs of the disposal of African labour. After all, we reduced the original figures to three broad headings. The cost of the disposal of African labour could not be included in compensation to personnel for terminating their services. But in fact, if the assets of the Corporation were to be liquidated immediately by the closure of the Scheme, one of the costs which would have to be borne by the Corporation would be the dispersal of the concentration of African labour. This was the most appropriate of the three heads under which to include this cost.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the question of stores, will he say what it is estimated that these stores will yield? Is it £2,250,000?

Mr. Willey: That is another matter.

Mr. Lloyd: This hypothetical figure was put in to terrify people into agreeing to the Scheme going on. That is the object of that figure.

Mr. Willey: That is the matter which confused the issue. This cost with which we are dealing at the moment is a cost consequent upon the disposal of the assets of the Corporation. If we deal with the loss on the liquidation of the assets, which is the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman had in mind, that is an entirely different question. That would be an estimate of the realisation of the assets of the Corporation, which is an entirely different matter. But we are dealing now only with this cost consequent upon, and brought about by, the closure of the Scheme.

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that answer. This figure of £4,500,000 is a hypothetical figure of the cost of closing down completely. We are told that because it would involve that loss to close down the Scheme, we ought to agree to its going on and to spend £6,000,000. Surely the relevant figure, which we have not been given, is how much these surplus stores are going to yield. That is another hypothetical figure; it is an estimate. The figure of £4,500,000 was an estimate. Before we can judge the validity of the figure of £4,500,000 we must know how much these stores are worth.

Mr. Frederic Harris: I must support my hon. Friends on this. The Parliamentary Secretary has got us all into a state of difficulty now. He is really saying that from a certain given date, if the idea was to close down the Scheme—which is not the idea now, as far as the Government are concerned—then it is going to cost £1,600,000 to get rid of these stores. What could he be talking about? Surely these stores must be worth several millions of pounds. The £36 million have gone somewhere, and quite a few of those millions of pounds have gone in overbuying for a Scheme which it was thought could be coped with but which it was subsequently proved could not be handled. Therefore the whole of East Africa must be littered with stores, whether those stores are plant or anything else. It is certainly not snoek in this case. In Dar-es-Salaam, Nairobi, and Tanganyika, we must have plenty of stores—many millions of pounds worth of stores.
The hon. Gentleman's suggestion is that if these stores had to be disposed of, it would cost £1,600,000 to do that. Surely that is not possible. What is the Parlia-


mentary Secretary going to get for these stores when he sells them? What stores are there to be sold? It is well known that if one has stocks of anything today, prices are going up. Surely if we had to cut off this Scheme at any time, we ought to make a profit on the stores. If we had to keep on supporting things put to us today on the basis of advice given, and if we did so on an issue like this, we would be a second-rate business undertaking.
We do not know what we are doing. We are told to accept the statement of the Minister that, if he has to close down and dispose of the stores, he is going to find a way to lose £1,600,000. I could tell him how to do it. It has been done in the past, and a lot of it went into the hands of the Indians. Anybody can give money away as quick as lightning. If we are to base our whole argument on the type of information which the Minister is apparently getting from some advisers somewhere, then all I can respectfully say is that he ought to tell somebody to change the advisers.
I appeal to the Minister once again to appreciate that it is quite clearly ridiculous to pretend that, in disposing of stores, if this Scheme were "packed up" and we had to get out, he is going to find some really extraordinary way of losing £1,600,000. Anybody knows that, if the stores were bought in the last three or four years, as presumably they were, he would make a profit, and not a loss; and that is what is worrying hon. Members on this side of the Committee.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I thought my hon. Friends had made their point perfectly clear; all we are asking is what is the figure these stores will get when they are sold.

Sir I. Fraser: May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that we abandon this discussion, and all go home, and then he can find the time to get the information which he obviously has not got at present, and then at another time, when he has that information, he can come and tell us? Surely in one of the Ministries concerned, or in the archives of the Treasury, or in the London office of this Corporation, there are figures which will disclose to somebody who understands accountancy what these stores cost. Let us suppose that they cost £10 million; then they are now probably worth £15 million, because every month they are

increasing in value. It is most unsatisfactory that the Committee should be put in this position, and I do not think that the Minister should get his Clause when he utterly refuses to give this information. It is an insult to right hon. and hon. Members, furthermore, that there is nobody here from the Treasury who is competent to answer questions about plain figures.

Mr. Webb: If I may intervene, may I say that, without accepting any of the allegations made about the inadequacy of the information given by the Parliamentary Secretary—because I think that he has given a lucid statement—I will undertake to look at this point. The information given tonight has to be considered against the background of the printed information which is, and has been, available to right hon. and hon. Members for some time now, and if that had been done, I think it would have been considered satisfactory. This is not a matter for great depths of difference between us. The Committee are entitled to as much information as we can give, and between now and the Report stage I will undertake to break down the figures. I do not know how far we can go this is a complex matter, but in so far as we can break them down. I will undertake to do it.

Captain Crookshank: I must say that we are all very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that, and we can only hope that, when available, the information will be that for which we have been asking. It is all very well for the Minister to say that he is surprised that there should be so much difficulty following upon the large amount of printed background which has been available, but he should remember that he and his friends have been living with this problem day in and day out. We all know it has been the skeleton in their cupboard for so long. Right hon. and hon. Members are deluged with all sorts of information and it is somewhat difficult for us, although interested in a variety of subjects, to keep up with every separate detail.
It is surely the duty of Ministers, when explaining Bills, to provide information upon which the ordinary Member can make up his mind. An hon. Member should be able to come in to the debate and obtain information. If he brought


in with him all the books and documents available on the subject, there would be no room to move in the Chamber. It is the proud privilege of Ministers to take from all those reference books all the relevant information from which the rest of us can form our judgments. Perhaps what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food told us will look better in print. Perhaps we shall be better able to disentangle the figures when we read this Debate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
The fact still remains that we have not had any estimate at all, so far as I have heard, of the two very relevant figures for which we have repeatedly asked. I mention it again so that the right hon. Gentleman can be quite sure that these are not overlooked in the information he is going to give us. First, what is the estimated value of the stores it is intended to sell now that a modified plan has been decided upon? Secondly, what would be the value of the stores to be sold if the whole scheme were closed down altogether, as is mentioned in the White Paper, paragraph 17?
If we knew what is the estimated value of all these stores which would be sold in that contingency, we should then be able to relate it to the cost of £1,600,000 which the Parliamentary Secretary says is what would be involved in maintaining the stores for two years—concentrating, moving them, and all the rest. It would give us some idea of the relevant cost of doing that. These are the two figures in which we are most interested and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give them to us. As we are on the Question that the Clause stand part—

The Chairman: I am very doubtful indeed whether the questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman properly refer to the Clause at all.

Captain Crookshank: I could not agree with you more, Major Milner, but without criticising your predecessor in the Chair, may I say that it was decided that it would be more convenient for the Parliamentary Secretary, who, incidentally, had not then the information, to give us the information on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." That was the arrangement with the Chair. The whole problem is that for the last 25 minutes or so there

has been so much dubiety about what was the information and the relationship between it and anything that anybody asked, that we have got out of order in your view, Major Milner. I must submit we are only following the lead which has been given us.
It is right for me now to say, as we are discussing the Clause standing part—and this is where you took me up, Major Milner—just one comment. I do not think the debate is going to be prolonged any further. While, during the last hour or two, we have been pursuing these very important problems, without much success, in order to inform ourselves of the details, the fact still remains that this is the major Clause in the Bill, in which £36,500,000 of the taxpayers' money is being written off as the result of one of the greatest failures of Government activity ever known. I think we should pause to remind ourselves of that, because when the right hon. Gentleman the other day said
I am very sure that it is prudent, honest and right now to write off our losses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1951; Vol. 484, c. 1093.]
we had some measure of the financial views of a Socialist Administration. While it may be right to write off £36,500,000 when you have gone completely bankrupt, how far the word "prudent" can be attached to the transaction I do not know. I imagine it is inevitable, but whether it is "honest" or not, again I do not know. It depends on the view one takes about that word. That is the effect of this Clause—£36,500,000 is being wiped off and at the same time this Committee is authorising, by subsection (2), the continuation of a scheme of some sort or another by some new form of financing.
It is only because we are going to have an annual review of the estimates of the new Scheme and because of the previous decision of the Committee, that we do not propose to divide the Committee tonight on the Motion that the Clause stand part of the Bill, because the Colonial Secretary has reminded us that we shall have opportunities annually of reviewing, and presumably annually deciding, whether we want to continue the Scheme in its modified form. We have an Amendment on the Order Paper in which it is suggested


that there should be a maximum in any financial year, but we have not thought fit to move it, although we hope the occasion will arise, perhaps on Third Reading, for the Minister to reiterate the present intention of the Government, which I understand is that not more than £1 million a year should be voted.

11.45 p.m.

The Chairman: I think we must have a little order in this matter. Do I understand that the Minister has given an undertaking and that the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied with it?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I do not think that at any stage I gave any undertaking that in any one given year there would be a sum of £1 million or less than that. I have no recollection of it.

Captain Crookshank: It was just an idea of mine that if a scheme was going to cost £6 million in seven years, it would be reasonable to pay £1 million as a maximum each year; but the reference to all this is subsection (2) of this Clause, where the Secretary of State for the Colonies
may out of moneys provided by Parliament pay to the Overseas Food Corporation such sums in respect of expenses of the Corporation as he may with the consent of the Treasury determine 
It was that to which I referred, and it was to that subsection that we had put down an Amendment which was, in fact, not moved. That was my only contention, because I thought it was reasonable out of the sum of £6 million to pay an annual maximum of £1 million.

The Chairman: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows that it is not in order to make reference to

an Amendment which has not been incorporated in the Clause which it is proposed should stand part. That is not in order.

Captain Crookshank: No, but I think that a passing reference or so is. I pass immediately from it in the hope that at some stage the right hon. Gentleman can give us his intentions with regard to the matter, but I must remind the Committee that this is the most important Clause in the Bill, because of its effects on the taxpayers, the loss of public money involved, the loss of confidence of the public both in the Corporation which has been instrumental in losing the money and in the Government which have permitted it to go on. All these things arise out of the Clause, but because the Government have decided in future to mend their ways—at any rate to the extent of making this an annual discussion—we do not intend to vote against the Clause, particularly as we have the promise that we are going to have this information which the right hon. Gentleman will make available to us on the value of all the assets.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

To report Progress, and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Whiteley.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell.]

Adjourned accordingly at Ten Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.